Identification of 19 novel hepatitis C virus subtypes-further expanding HCV classification

Hedskog, Charlotte
Parhy, Bandita
Chang, Silvia
Zeuzem, Stefan
Moreno, Christophe
Shafran, Stephen S.D.
Borgia, Sergio S.M.
Asselah, Tarik
Alric, Laurent
Abergel, Armando
Chen, Jyh Jou
Collier, Jane
Kapoor, Dharmesh
Hyland, Robert R.H.
Simmonds, Peter
Mo, Hongmei
Svarovskaia, Evguenia

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Publication date

March 2019

DOI

10.1093/ofid/ofz076

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Abstract

Background. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is currently classified into 8 genotypes and 86 subtypes. The objective of this study was to characterize novel HCV subtypes and to investigate the impact of subtypes on treatment outcome. Methods. Full-genome sequencing was performed on HCV plasma samples with <85% sequence homology of NS3, NS5A, and/ or NS5B to HCV genotype (GT) 1-8 reference strains. Results. A total of 14 653 patients with GT1-6 HCV infection were enrolled in clinical studies of sofosbuvir-based regimens. For the majority of the patients, a specific subtype could be assigned based on a close genetic relationship to previously described subtypes. However, for 19 patients, novel subtypes were identified with <85% homology compared with ...