Dynamic behavior of hepatitis C virus quasispecies in a long-term culture of the three-dimensional radial-flow bioreactor system

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) exists in infected individuals as quasispecies, usually consisting of a dominant viral isolate and a variable mixture of related, yet genetically distinct, variants. A prior HCV infection system was developed using human hepatocellular carcinoma cells cultured in the three-dimensional radial-flow bioreactor (RFB), in which the cells retain morphological appearance and their differentiated hepatocyte functions for an extended period of time. This report studies the selection and alteration of the viral quasispecies in the RFB system inoculated with pooled serum derived from HCV carriers. Monitoring the viral RNA and core protein in the culture supernatants, together with nucleotide sequencing of hypervariable region 1 of the HCV genome, demonstrated that (1) the virus production intermittently fluctuated in the cultures, (2) the viral genetic diversity was markedly reduced 3 days post-infection (p.i.), and (3) dominant species changed on days 19–33 p.i., suggesting that the virus populations can be selected according to susceptibility to the viral infection and replication. A therapeutic effect of interferon-α also demonstrated the inhibition of HCV expression. Thus, this HCV infection model in the RFB system should be useful for investigating the dynamic behavior of HCV quasispecies in cultured cells and evaluating anti-HCV compounds.