The complete coding sequence of a European isolate of GB-C hepatitis G virus

We determined the full-length coding sequence of a GB-C/hepatitis G (GBV-C/HGV) virus isolate (AUQ) obtained from a French blood donor. The genome of AUQ strain contains a long open reading frame encoding 2842 amino acid residues. Comparison with the 33 complete genome sequences so far available from the databases indicates that the full-length sequence of GBV-C/HGV AUQ showed 9.0-14.1% nucleotide sequence divergence but only 1.6-5.3% at the amino acid level. Analysis of the potential cleavage sites of the polyprotein found that they were remarkably conserved among all sequences. Although phylogenetic studies based on partial genomic sequences suggested a clusterization according to the geographical origin, analysis based on full-length polyprotein did not provide similar conclusions. (C) 1999 Academic Press.