Hepatitis C virus peptide antigens and a method of testing for the hepatitis C virus (HCV)

A hepatitis C virus (HCV) peptide antigen (I) having the 16 amino acid sequence (i) or a partial sequence of (i) comprising at least 4 amino acids, is new. A hepatitis C virus (HCV) peptide antigen (I) having the 16 amino acid sequence (i) or a partial sequence of (i) comprising at least 4 amino acids, is new, where (i) has the following sequence: Gly Gln Ile Val Gly Gly Val Tyr Leu Leu Pro Arg Gly Pro Arg Leu Gly (i) Independent claims are also included for the following: (1) a HCV peptide antigen (II) containing the sequence: Val Gly Gly Val Tyr Leu Leu Pro Arg Arg Gly Pro (ii); (2) a HCV peptide antigen (III) containing the sequence: Val Tyr Leu Leu Pro Arg Arg Gly Pro Arg Leu Gly (iii); (3) a HCV peptide antigen (IV) comprising the sequence: Gly Val Tyr Leu Leu Pro Arg Arg (iv); (4) preparing antibodies (V) against (I) or fragments of (I); (5) characterizing the HCV virus, comprising contacting a probe with (V) and allowing an antigen-antibody complex to form, incubating the complex, and determining the amount of the formed complex: (6) a vaccine (VI) containing (I) or fragments of (I) as an immunogen; (7) preparing (VI); (8) an immunological method (VII) for determining the infectivity of HCV sera, using one or more (I), fragments of (I) or (II) - (IV) from the core epitope of HCV.