Yıldız, E.Oztan, A.Sar, F.Pınarbası, E.Cetin Atalay, R.Akkız, H.Ozturk, M.2016-02-082016-02-0820020920-8569http://hdl.handle.net/11693/24633Based on direct sequencing information from 5′UTR and NS5B regions, we identified subtype 1b as a predominant hepatitis C virus genome in Turkey, which affected more than 91% of 79 patients studied. Next, the full genome sequence of a Turkish 1b isolate was obtained by the cloning of polypeptide-encoding region into 7 overlapping fragments. Turkish 1b isolate, which was named HCV-TR1, comprises 9361 nucleotides, including 306 nucleotides of 5′UTR, a single long open reading frame of 9033 nucleotides, and 22 nucleotides of 3′UTR. When compared to HCV 1b polypeptide sequences available at GenBank, the predicted polypeptide displayed a total of 36 amino acid substitutions, of which 16 was specific for HCV-TR1 isolate. Despite these changes, major structural and functional motifs of HCV proteins were maintained in HCV-TR1. In contrast, HCV-TR1 displayed amino acid substitutions in 6 out of 9 major cytotoxic T-cell epitopes. These data suggest that HCV-TR1 encodes functionally intact viral proteins, but it also encodes altered viral epitopes, which may affect host immune-response.EnglishHCV-TR1Hepatitis C virusSubtype 1bViral epitopeNucleotideamino acid substitutionArticle10.1023/A:1020161818764