Cell culture systems for the hepatitis C virus

Figure 1 Infection of different hepatoma cell lines by JFH1 virus. HepG2 not expressing the CD81 receptor, HepG2 expressing the CD81 receptor and Huh-7 cell- lines were used for the infection. Cells seeded at between 3 and 5. 10⁵ cells per well in 24-well plates were incubated for 2 h at 37°C with 200 mL of culture medium containing infectious JFH1 virus (obtained after successive re-infection of naive Huh-7 cells). Cells were processed and immunostained for the detection of capsid, as previously described (Rouillé et al., 2006, J Virol, 80). The Figure shows the detection of HCV capsid protein in HepG2-CD81 and Huh-7 cells but not in HepG2 cells. Re-infection of naive HepG2-CD81 and Huh-7 cells is effective with the resulting supernatant from each infection.