A reevaluation of the association of hepatitis C virus replicative intermediates with peripheral blood cells including granulocytes by a tagged reverse transcription/polymerase chain reaction technique

Background/Aims: Persistence of hepatitis C virus at extrahepatic sites is of both basic and clinical interest. The clinical interest arises mainly from the occurrence of reinfections of the hepatic allograft following transplantation. Therefore, any extrahepatic association of virus, e.g. with peripheral blood cells, appears relevant. Methods: In this study we employed for the first time the recently developed tagged reverse transcription/polymerase chain reaction procedure to determine the presence of genomic HCV RNA and antigenomic replicative intermediates in RNA preparations from sera, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and polymorphonuclear granulocytes of 29 patients with chronic hepatitis C virus infection. Results: All sera were found to contain both genomic and antigenomic HCV RNA. In addition to peripheral blood mononuclear cells, viral nucleic acids were found to be associated with polymorphonuclear granulocytes, too. Conclusions: In individual patients different patterns were observed for the distribution of hepatitis C virus genomes and antigenomes among peripheral blood mononuclear cells and polymorphonuclear granulocytes, apparently neither related to pretreatment biochemical parameters, nor to response following interferon-α2a treatment, nor to hepatitis C virus genotype.