A new restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis has been developed for hepatitis C virus (HCV) typing in the viral 5′ non-coding region and contiguous core region. These genomic sequences were chosen for the relative nucleotide homology among different genotypes and for the presence of polymorphic sites. By employing two endonucleases (Acc I and Mbo I) and, in some instances, a third one (Eco RII), we can unambiguously and reproducibly distinguish between genotypes and subtypes 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2c, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4a, 5a and 6a. The method was applied for diagnosing two Italian groups of HCV-infected individuals reflecting a randomly collected population and a group of intravenous drug users. The accuracy of this method has been validated by comparison with INNOLiPA and by sequencing. Our approach represents an improvement over previous RFLP methods, since typing is accurate and simpler.

Keywords:
Hepatitis C virus genotypes, Hepatitis C virus RNA, INNOLiPA, Restriction fragment length polymorphism
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1999
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