CLASSIFICATION OF HEPATITIS-C VIRUSES BASED ON PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS OF THE ENVELOPE-1 AND NONSTRUCTURAL 5B REGIONS AND IDENTIFICATION OF 5 ADDITIONAL SUBTYPES

Genotyping of hepatitis C virus-positive sera by means of a line probe assay indicated that <3 % of European samples, but up to 30% of Gabonese sera, could not be classified as either 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4c, 5a, or 6a. Such samples were analyzed in the 5' untranslated region and in the nonstructural 5 (NS5) region. Classification based on phylogenetic analysis of the commonly used 222-bp-long NS5B region was possible for most but not all of the selected sera. Therefore, the core/envelope 1 region (579 bp) and a larger NS5B (340 bp) region were also analyzed. Only the phylogenetic analysis of the 340-bp NS5B region of these newly identified and published isolates provided unambiguous classification into types and subtypes. Furthermore, unequivocal evidence for four subtypes in type 2 and eight subtypes in type 4 was provided. A specific recognition sequence in the 5' untranslated region was observed for every newly identified subtype. Based on 1830 pair-wise comparisons in NS5B, isolates belonging to the same subtype showed evolutionary distances of <0.127 and isolates of the same type exhibited evolutionary distances of <0.328. These phylogenetic border distances can be conveniently used for classification of hepatitis C virus isolates into types and subtypes.