Comparative features of hepatitis C virus infection in humans and chimpanzees.

Several features of human HCV infection are recapitulated in the chimpanzee model. Most importantly, the frequency of persistent infection is high in both species, and virus replication occurs despite evidence of cellular and humoral immune responses. A key difference is that necroinflammatory lesions in chronically infected chimpanzees are almost always mild, whereas in humans the disease spectrum is very wide, ranging from mild to severe hepatitis and end-stage cirrhosis requiring transplantation. Understanding the basis for both the similarities and differences in persistent hepatitis C in the two species will probably be important for the development of effective prevention and therapy of HCV infection.