Detection of neutralizing antibodies with HCV pseudoparticles (HCVpp)

Infectious HCV pseudoparticles (HCVpp) can be assembled by display of unmodified and functional HCV glycoproteins on retroviral and lentiviral core particles. HCVpp have been shown to mimic the early infection steps of parental HCV. The presence of a marker gene packaged within these HCV pseudoparticles allows reliable and fast determination of infectivity mediated by the HCV glycoproteins. With this highly flexible system, E1E2 from a broad range of HCV strains can be investigated, including autologous HCV strains from patients' virus, and it has allowed careful investigation of the humoral response to HCV.