Microscopy images documenting cellular morphology and infection phenotypes of wild-type and attenuated HCV variants

Immunostaining of Huh7.5 cell infected with HCV variants or WT at 2, 4 and 6 dayspost infection. Cells were stained with HCV-positive serum and anti-human 488Alexa fluor as secondary antibody and visualized by fluorescence microscopy. Green– HCV infection, blue – nuclei (DAPI).Invasion/migration experiment: WT-infected and HCVmut7-infected cells were seeded ininserts on Matrigel for 24 hours and then fixated. Filters were stained with crystalviolet. The cells that invaded the lower side on the filters were counted.Matrix degradation assay: WT-infected and HCVmut7-infected cells were plated on Alexa 488 labelled Gelatine for72 hours and then fixated. Degradation was analysed by quantifying the averagedegraded area per field using ImageJ software and normalized to the number of cellsin each field.