Limited effect on NS3–NS4A protein cleavage after alanine substitutions within the immunodominant HLA-A2-restricted epitope of the hepatitis C virus genotype 3a non-structural 3/4A protease
Ahlén, Gustaf and Chen, Antony and Roe, Barbara and Falkeborn, Tina and Frelin, Lars and Hall, William W. and Sällberg, Matti and Söderholm, Jonas,, 93, 1680-1686 (2012),
doi = https://doi.org/10.1099/vir.0.043745-0,
publicationName = Microbiology Society,
issn = 0022-1317,
abstract= It has been well established that immunological escape mutations within the hepatitis C virus genotype (gt) 1a non-structural (NS) 3/4A protease are partly prevented by a reduction in viral protease fitness. Surprisingly little is known about whether similar mutations affect proteases from other genotypes. In the present study, we assessed both the HLA-A2-restricted CTL response and gt3a NS3/4A protease fitness. Similar to gt1, the 1073–1081 epitope was immunodominant within the gt3a-specific HLA-A2-restricted CTL response, despite sequence similarity of only 56 % between the gt1a and gt3a genes. However, unlike the gt1a NS3/4A protease, all residues within the gt3a 1073–1081 epitope could be replaced sequentially by alanine while retaining protease activity, at least in part.,
language=,
type=