Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an infectious disease caused by hepatitis C virus (HCV), which is extremely harmful to health and life. Hepatitis C is preventable and treatable. Hepatitis C virus can spread through blood, sexual contact, and mother-to-child transmission.

HCV virions are spherical and single-stranded positive-sense RNA viruses. HCV-RNA is about 9.6 kb in length, and its genome consists of structural (core, envelope) and non-structural (protease, helicase, enzyme cofactor) proteins and non-coding regions. The open reading frame (ORF) located in the center of the gene encodes a precursor polyprotein of more than 3,000 amino acids, which is cleaved into 10 HCV proteins with independent functions by host and viral proteases and named core protein Core (C), envelope proteins 1 and 2 (E1, E2), p7, and the non-structural proteins NS2, NS3, NS4A, NS4B, NS5A, and NS5B according to different functions.

Among them,, HCV core region is the target gene region for HCV genotyping and serotyping, and is also an important region for the treatment of HCV infection and vaccine research at the genetic level, and the core region gene is the most conserved, and its encoded antigen has the strongest immunity. Core and NS3 antigens appear early, widely distributed and have strong affinity, so Core and NS3 proteins have become the main raw materials of blood screening diagnostic reagents today. Antigens used in the current test method are antigens such as Core, NS3, NS4, and NS5 expressed in recombinant E. coli.