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Hepatitis C viral RNA in serum of patients with chronic non‐A, non‐B hepatitis: Detection by the polymerase chain reaction using multiple primer sets
Author(s) -
Cristiano Karen,
Di Bisceglie Adrian M.,
Hoofnagle Jay H.,
Feinstone Stephen M.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
hepatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.488
H-Index - 361
eISSN - 1527-3350
pISSN - 0270-9139
DOI - 10.1002/hep.1840140109
Subject(s) - virology , hepatitis b virus dna polymerase , hepatitis c virus , virus , polymerase chain reaction , hepatitis , antibody , hepatitis b virus , nested polymerase chain reaction , hepatitis b , primer (cosmetics) , biology , medicine , immunology , chemistry , gene , biochemistry , organic chemistry
The recently introduced antibody test for hepatitis C virus infection has already proved to be valuable in many situations such as screening blood donors and diagnosing chronically infected patients, but this antibody assay has certain limitations. Hepatitis C virus itself is usually present in clinical specimens at very low titers; therefore a useful assay for the virus must have very high sensitivity. We have developed a simple, highly sensitive assay for hepatitis C virus RNA based on the polymerase chain reaction. In this test RNA extracted from hepatitis C virus—infected serum or plasma is used as the template for double polymerase chain reaction with nested primers. Sensitivity studies demonstrate that this assay is able to detect hepatitis C virus at or beyond the sensitivity level of chimpanzee infectivity. Preliminary studies in chronic non‐A, non‐B hepatitis showed that 16 of 36 patients positive for antibody to hepatitis C virus and 2 of 4 patients negative for antibody to hepatitis C virus were positive in the polymerase chain reaction test. By retesting the polymerase chain reaction—negative patients with several sets of polymerase chain reaction primers, we found hepatitis C virus RNA in 35 of the 40 patients including all 4 seronegative patients. Normal human plasma and plasma from patients with hepatitis B infection did not react in this test. This assay has proved to be valuable for determining the presence of hepatitis C virus RNA in various samples. Furthermore, it offers the possibility of diagnosis of hepatitis C virus infection in patients who do not react in the presently available antibody tests. (HEPATOLOGY 1991;14:51–55.)