Mutations in immunodominant T cell epitopes derived from the nonstructural 3 protein of hepatitis C virus have the potential for generating escape variants that may have important consequences for T cell recognition.

Abstract excerpt

One of the most disturbing features of hepatitis C virus (HCV) is its long-term persistence in the host. One hypothesis to explain this phenomenon is that HCV escapes immune recognition through its intrinsic hypermutability. To determine whether immunodominant T cell epitopes derived from HCV nonstructural 3 (NS3) protein might be subject to sequence variations leading to escape mutants, we examined sequence...

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