en عمومى General پژوهشي Original article <div style="border-style: solid none border-top-color: windowtext border-top-width: 1pt border-bottom-color: windowtext border-bottom-width: 1pt padding: 1pt 0cm"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr unicode-bidi: embed border: none padding: 0cm"><b>Background and Aims:</b> The hepatitis C virus (HCV) F protein is a recently described, frameshift product of HCV core encoding sequence. Its function and antigenic properties are unknown.<span dir="rtl"> </span>In order to assess the presence of antibodies specific for F protein we characterized specific anti-F antibodies in patients with chronic HCV infection.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr unicode-bidi: embed border: none padding: 0cm"><b>Methods:</b> The F protein was cloned from the HCV genome. The recombinant protein was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified by immunoaffinity chromatography. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was developed using the purified recombinant HCV F protein.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr unicode-bidi: embed border: none padding: 0cm"><b>Results:</b> Serum samples were collected from 72 patients with chronic HCV infection and from 30 healthy controls. Eighty-two percent of chronic HCV patients had evidence of anti-F antibodies. 59 samples out of the 72 HCV infected patients exhibited a positive anti-F reaction, showing significant difference from the controls with no HCV infection (P < 0.01).</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr unicode-bidi: embed border: none padding: 0cm"><b>Conclusion:<span style="color: red">&nbsp;</span></b>Based on these findings, HCV F protein elicits a specific antibody response, so frameshift could occur in the core-coding sequence in HCV genotype 1a in Iranian patients. As the first report, the prevalence of anti-F antibodies in chronic hepatitis C in <st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place> is of the order of 82%.</p> </div> Hepatitis C virus, HCV F protein,Alternative reading frame protein 1 6 http://journal.isv.org.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1-23&slc_lang=en&sid=1 T Hashempour 10031947532846002594 10031947532846002594 No Department of Virology, School of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran M Ajorloo 10031947532846002595 10031947532846002595 No Department of Virology, School of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran T Bamdad 10031947532846002596 10031947532846002596 Yes Department of Virology, School of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran S Merat 10031947532846002597 10031947532846002597 No Digestive Disease Research Center, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran H Zaer-Rezaee 10031947532846002598 10031947532846002598 No Digestive Disease Research Center, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran E Fakharzadeh 10031947532846002599 10031947532846002599 No Digestive Disease Research Center, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran R Asadi 10031947532846002600 10031947532846002600 No Digestive Disease Research Center, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran H Zamini 10031947532846002601 10031947532846002601 No Digestive Disease Research Center, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran AA Teimouri 10031947532846002602 10031947532846002602 No Department of Virology, School of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran