Mutation analysis of interferon sensitivity determining region and protein kinase binding domain of HCV NS5A gene isolated from chronic hepatitis C patients

Hepatitis C virus is major public health problem in our country like as in all over the world because of the being chronical infections of approximately 80% the hepatitis C virus infections and related complications such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The majority of HCV isolates are resistant to antiviral therapy. Although the molecular mechanisms of resistance against to antiviral therapy were investigated in such studies in vivo and/or in vitro and the significant results were obtained, the resistance problem has not been solved yet. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between therapy and response by detecting the mutations in ISDR and PKR-BD site among HCV positive patients in Gaziantep. The total of 59 HCV RNA positive patients: 34 female and 25 male were included. In ISDR site in PKR-BD site, 25 of 97 aminoacid substitutions (27,83%) of the sustained virological responser patients; 12 of 78 aminoacid substitutions (15,38%) in the non-responser patients were determined. As a result of this study, the significant relation between the number of mutation in interferon sensitivity determining region-ISDR and protein kinase binding domain-PKR-BD of NS5A gene and the response to interferon-alpha + ribavirin combination therapy was not determined.