Stephanie Kallis

TL;DR: A series of further chimeric genomes allowing production of infectious genotype (GT) 1a, 1b, 2a, and 3a particles are created, suggesting that determinants within the structural proteins govern kinetic and efficiency of virus assembly and release and an E1-specific antiserum capable of neutralizing infectivity of all HCV chimeras is described.

TL;DR: Novel insights are provided into the production of infectious HCV and NS5A is identified as a major determinant for HCV assembly, which suggests that viral isolates may differ in their level of virion production and thus in theirlevel of fitness and pathogenesis.

TL;DR: The morphology of the membranous rearrangements induced in HCV-infected cells resemble those of the unrelated picorna-, corona- and arteriviruses, but are clearly distinct from those from the closely related flavivirus.

TL;DR: The data show that the mode of virus entry is conserved between these isolates and involves CD81 as a key receptor for pH-dependent virus entry and that interactions of HCV with cell surface-resident glycosaminoglycans aid in efficient infection of Huh7 cells and that CD81 acts during a postattachment step.

TL;DR: It is found that p7 is essential for efficient assembly and release of infectious virions across divergent virus strains, and p7 variants from different isolates deviate substantially in their capacity to promote virus production, suggesting that p 7 is an important virulence factor that may modulate fitness and in turn virus persistence and pathogenesis.