The present disclosure relates to polypeptides, including fusions thereof, nucleic acids, vectors, host cells, immunodiagnostic reagents, kits, and immunoassays for use detecting the presence of HCV antibodies. More specifically, the present invention describes specific NS3 antigens that can be used for the detection of anti-HCV antibodies.

The invention provides an antibody or antigen binding fragment thereof capable of binding to the antigen binding pocket of the AP33 antibody, wherein said antibody or antigen binding fragment thereof comprises VL CDR1 (L1), VL CDR2 (L2), and VL CDR.sub.3 (L.sub.3) consisting of the amino acid sequences of SEQ ID NO:1, SEQ ID NO:2 and SEQ ID NO:23 respectively, and comprises VH CDR1 (H1), VH CDR2 (H2), and VH CDR3 (H3) consisting of the amino acid sequences of SEQ ID NO:24, SEQ ID NO:25, and SEQ ID NO:26 respectively. The invention also provides compositions, methods, nucleic acids and uses.

The present invention relates to methods for obtaining a whole virus vaccine candidate stock. The present invention also relates to an inactivated whole virus vaccine candidate stock that can be used for vaccination purposes as well as development of novel high titer virus, which is the preferred virus for this technique.

Compositions and methods are provided relating to HCV E2 protein and modifications thereto which enhance the immunogenicity of the protein for vaccine development with respect to the generation of a neutralizing immune response.

Modified non-human mammalian hepatoma cell lines that express hepatitis C virus (HCV) antigens and which are capable of generating tumours in a syngeneic animal model are provided. The cell lines are generated by genomic integration of an expression construct that comprises one or more HCV antigen-encoding sequences under the control of a constitutive promoter. The expression construct further comprises a selectable marker and a reporter gene under the control of the same promoter. The cell lines are useful for testing prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines against HCV either in vitro or in vivo.

The present disclosure relates to constructs useful in expressing biotinylated monomers and tetramers produced from these monomers. Specifically, the disclosure provides a construct useful in expressing biotinylated antigen monomers, said construct comprising a viral protein of an ectodomain of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) envelope glycoprotein E2 or Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) gp140. Further disclosed are methods for production and use of these tetramers in identifying and isolating antigen specific B cells and cloning antibodies thereto.

The invention relates to a method of in-vitro detection of an infection with a hepatitis C virus (HCV) in a biological sample, comprising the simultaneous detection of the HCV capsid protein and of an antibody directed against said capsid protein, said method using, for capturing the anti-capsid antibodies, a peptide comprising an antigenic fragment derived from the truncated HCV capsid. The invention also relates to the peptide for capturing the anti-capsid antibodies and the kits comprising it.

The present disclosure provides affinity tagged heterodimeric polypeptides comprising a hepatitis C virus (HCV) E1 polypeptide and an HCV E2 polypeptide, where one or both of the E1 and E2 polypeptides comprises an affinity tag. The present disclosure provides a method of producing an affinity tagged E1/E2 heterodimer of the present disclosure. The present disclosure provides methods of producing untagged HCV E1/E2 heterodimers. The present disclosure provides HCV E1/E2 heterodimers, compositions comprising same, and methods of inducing an immune response to HCV.

Methods of producing and using Hepatitis C virus (HCV) eE2 polypeptides are described.

The present invention relates to a method of purifying whole HCV particles, the method comprising the steps of a) providing a cell culture supernatant comprising virus particles, b) purification and/or concentration of the cell culture supernatant, c) purification and/or concentration of the product of above step b) using steric exclusion chromatography (SXC) at alkaline pH in the range of 8-10, d) purification and/or concentration of the product of above step c) using sulphated cellulose membrane absorbers (SCMA), e) obtaining purified whole virus particles.