Isolation of JFH-1 strain and development of an HCV infection system

Detailed analysis of hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been hampered by the lack of an appropriate viral culture system and small animal models of infection. My group and others have recently reported the production of infectious virus after full-length HCV RNA transfection into Huh-7 cells. This system depends primarily on isolation of a JFH-1 strain from a patient with fulminant hepatitis. The JFH-1 strain belongs to genotype 2a and has high colony-formation efficiency when tested with a subgenomic replicon system. Here, I describe various protocols for isolation of the JFH-1 strain and construction of the HCV infection system. The HCV infection system contributes to our understanding of HCV virology and may permit development of novel antiviral strategies.