Antibodies directed to envelope proteins of hepatitis C virus outside of hypervariable region 1

The relatively high variability of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) envelope proteins E1 and E2 suggests that parts of these proteins other than the hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) might be involved in the induction of virus neutralizing antibodies. To test this hypothesis, two HCV proteins, pE1 and pE2Δ, were generated by in vitro translation. They represent amino acids 174-337 of E1 and 411-688 of E2, respectively, of isolate HCV-AD78; the protein pE2Δ contained no HVR1. As a control, protein pG.HVR1, which represents amino acids 384-410 of HVR1 of isolate HCV-AD78, was expressed separately. These three proteins were used in an immunoprecipitation assay to detect the presence of antiviral antibodies in sera of patients infected with the same isolate of HCV (HCV-AD78). Sera were obtained 4-8 months postinfection from patients who later resolved an acute infection or developed chronic liver disease. A high prevalence of antibodies (up to 85.7%) against pE1 and pE2Δ could be detected in both groups of patients, suggesting that these forms of the HCV envelope proteins contain B-cell epitopes. The antibody responses against proteins pE1 and pE2Δ did not differ significantly between patients with resolving or chronic infection, whereas antibodies against protein pG.HVR1 were associated with resolution of infection. Rabbit antisera raised against pE1 and pE2Δ were tested for their ability to neutralize the binding of HCV to susceptible cells in tissue cultures. The results suggested that although a few B-cell epitopes outside of HVR1 can induce virus neutralizing antibodies, these antibodies are probably not associated with the resolution of infection.