A 385 insertion in the hypervariable region 1 of hepatitis C virus E2 envelope protein is found in some patients with mixed cryoglobulinemia type 2

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been associated with development of mixed cryoglobulinemia type 2 (MC2), a lymphoproliferative disorder characterized by B cell monoclonal expansion and immunoglobulin M/k cryoprecipitable immunoglobulin production. A short sequence (codons 384-410) of the HCV E2 protein, which has the potential to promote B cell proliferation, was investigated in 21 patients with HCV-related MC2 and in a control group of 20 HCV carriers without MC2. In 6 of the 21 (29%) patients with MC2, all the clones isolated from plasma, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and liver showed sequence length variation compared with the hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) consensus sequence; 5 patients had an insertion at codon 385, and 1 patient had a deletion at codon 384. Inserted residues at position 385 were different within and between patients. No such mutations were observed in any of the HVR1 clones from control patients without MC2, and the difference between the 2 groups was statistically significant (P= .02). Analysis of 1345 HVR1 sequences obtained from GenBank strongly supported the conclusion that the observed insertions and deletion represent a rare event in HCV-infected patients, suggesting that they are significantly associated with MC2. The physical and chemical profiles of the 385 inserted residues detected in the MC2 patients were consistent with the possibility that these mutations, which occurred in a region containing immunodominant epitopes for neutralizing antibodies and binding sites for B lymphocytes, may be selected by functional constraints for interaction with host cells.