Objective 1: Evaluate the role of the immune responses in determining the emergence of HCV NS3 resistance mutation during protease inhibitor therapy~Hypothesis 1 (HT 1): Low HLA binding to peptides containing protease inhibitor resistance mutations is associated with the emergence of protease inhibitor mutants during therapy and failure of the treatment.~Hypothesis 2 (HT 2): A hole in T cell repertoire may allow emergence of protease inhibitor mutants during protease inhibitor therapy which leads to loss of the immune responses to these mutants and failure of treatment.
The major goal of this project is to identify the role of the immune responses in the emergence of protease inhibitor mutants during therapy.