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The mechanisms by which the hepatitis C virus (HCV) establishes persistence are not yet fully understood. Previous chimpanzee and now human studies suggest that mutations within MHC class I-restricted HCV epitopes might contribute to viral escape from cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses. However, there are several outstanding questions regarding the role of escape mutations in viral persistence and their fate in the absence of immune selection pressure.
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Bowen et al. (2005) studied this question.
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