Patent ID: 8124747

Claim:
An isolated nucleic acid comprising an HCV nucleic acid sequence of an HCV, said HCV being characterized in that its phylogenetic distance from at least one of the following nucleic acid sequences is less than or equal to 0.328: the nucleic acid of SEQ ID NOs: 1, 2, or 16, the nucleic acid sequence encoding the protein of SEQ ID NOs: 3, 4 or 17, the full length complement of the nucleic acid sequence of SEQ ID NOs: 1, 2, or 16, or the full length complement of the nucleic acid sequence encoding the protein of SEQ ID NOs: 3, 4 or 17; wherein said HCV nucleic acid sequence comprises at least one nucleotide that is different from the corresponding nucleotide in an HCV nucleic acid sequence of an HCV of any of clades 1 to 6; wherein said nucleic acid is DNA, cDNA or a synthetic nucleic acid, or wherein said nucleic acid is RNA and wherein “T” is replaced by “U”.