Characterization of a Partial Sequence Encoding Envelop Protein of HCV-Genotype 4a Egyptian Isolate

In this study, RNA isolated from sera of Egyptian HCV-patients was used to amplify a fragment of a M. wt. of ~800pb corresponding to a partial sequence of the HCV-E2 encoding gene. The amplified fragment was cloned, sequenced and the nucleotide blast analysis of our sequence revealed partial homology with previously published E2-genes of viral isolates from different locations; the highest match (88%) was annotated with a Japanese isolate suggesting that our herein characterized HCV-E2 partial sequence is a novel one. The impact of HCV-E2 sequence variability will be discussed.