A SENSITIVE PCR ASSAY SYSTEM FOR THE QUANTITATION OF VIRAL GENOME EQUIVALENTS - HEPATITIS-C VIRUS (HCV)

A sensitive and reliable quantitative method has been developed for th e detection and quantitation of hepatitis C virus (HCV) target sequenc es. In this procedure, termed 'laser induced fluorescence PCR' (LIF-PC R), reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) is performed and the PCR produc ts are detected and quantified by laser-induced fluorescence. Precise quantitation of the viral target sequences is accomplished by the use of two calibrators that are amplified by the same set of primers as th e target template. A high degree of reliability is achieved by co-proc essing, co-amplification and co-detection of the calibrators, together with the nucleic acid to be determined. Genome equivalents of HCV con taining biological samples, including samples fm-om international test panels, were accurately quantitated with this procedure.