Translation efficiencies of identified HCV 5′UTR quasispecies in cell lines.
Four cell lines (HepG2, HuH7, Jurkat, and KG1, respectively, represented by ■, ▪, ▧, and ▨) were seeded in 24-well plates at 2 × 105 cells/well for adherent cells and 5 × 105 cells/well for nonadherent cells. The next day, they were infected with vTF7-3 recombinant vaccinia virus at 5 PFU/cell for 1 hour at 37°C and then transfected in triplicate as described in “Materials and methods” with respective bicistronic constructs, containing each of the identified HCV quasispecies. At 18 hours after transfection cells were lysed and assayed for luciferases activities. For each quasispecies (QD, QL1, QL2, QP1, QP2, and QP3) IRES relative activities were given as RLuc/FLuc ratios normalized to the QD (originated from DCs) RLuc/FLuc ratio. The data bars and error bars represent the means and SDs of 3 independent triplicate transfections.
