Impact of HCV Genome Structure on Responder to Pegylated Interferon Therapy in Egyptian Patients

This study aimed to investigate relationship of the HCV genome structure and treatment with Pegylated Inteiferon-alpha/Ribavirin (peg-IFN alpha/RBT) Egyptian patient. Mutations in two sites of HCV genome; the internal ribosome entry site (IRES) and the interferon sensitivity determining region (ISDR) of HCV genotype 4 alpha were studied in details including DNA sequences and mutations detection in response to treatment. Ninety patients, responders and non-responders, to treatment with peg-IFN alpha/RBV were included in this study. IRES and ISDR regions were amplified by RT-PCR using specific designed primers, and amplified regions were sequenced. The data obtained were aligned with published sequences in GenBank using BLAST program. Results of this study have revealed that there are different mutations in the studied sequences in both ISDR and IRES regions. The predicted amino acids sequences in the ISDR region showed significant differences ranging from one up to more than eight mutations in the HCV Genome sequences. Although there was a significant difference between sequences of HCV RNA isolated from responders and non-responders, these data were not able to give an absolute answer whether response to interferon therapy is directly/relates to the structure of the HCV genome.