Fig. 2

Organization of HCV genome and implications for polyprotein processing. a The HCV genome is a single-stranded RNA molecule that encodes a polyprotein of ~3,010 amino acids. The RNA structures of 5′ and 3′ untranslated regions (UTR) are highly conserved and essential for polyprotein translation and genome replication. S and NS correspond to genomic regions that code for structural and nonstructural proteins, respectively. b Location of HCV proteins relative to the ER membrane. HCV polyprotein is cotranslationally and posttranslationally processed by cellular and viral proteases to produce 10 mature proteins. Figure is adapted and modified from Ref. [50]