Hepatitis C virus genetic variability and evolution

Figure 3 Viral quasispecies. A virus replicating with a high mutation rate will generate a diverse mutant repertoire over the course of a few generations. In this schematic representation, a “parental” viral genome (black filled circle) gives rise to different variants (coloured squares, prisms and stars), each linked to another one by a point mutation. The concentric circles represent replication cycles. The resulting distribution is often referred to as quasispecies “Cloud”.