Analysis of hepatitis G virus/GB virus C quasispecies and replication sites in human subjects

Although the hepatitis G virus is unlikely to be a primary hepatotropic virus, its replication sites remain unclear. Using highly strand-specific Tth-based reverse transcriptase PCR we searched for the presence of the viral RNA negative strand in various autopsy tissues in two patients who died of end-stage liver disease. In addition, amplified viral sequences were compared in the 5' untranslated and the putative capsid regions by the single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP). Negative strand HGV RNA was detected in bone marrow and spleen from both patients and in lymph node tissue from one. All amplified sequences from a given patient were identical when compared by SSCP and direct sequencing. This lack of difference in the composition of quasispecies recovered from various tissues suggests the presence of a single, common viral compartment in the infected host.