Serological assay to determine hepatitis C virus genotype: comparison withPCR-based hepatitis C virus genotyping assay in patients with chronic hepatitis C treated with alpha interferon

The relationship between HCV genotype and response to IFN therapy is now we ll established [1]. Since differences in HCV types are found continuously o n the entire viral genome, different methods using nucleotide diversity in different regions of the HCV genome have been used to determine HCV type. B eside direct sequencing of the complete genome, polymerase chain reaction ( PCR) based assay using either restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFL P) [2-4], type-specific primers [5-7], or type specific probes [8,9] have b een used to determine HCV genotypes. These methods are time consuming, not convenient for routine use and expensive. Recently, serotyping immunoenzyma tic assays to detect genotype-specific antibodies directed to epitopes enco ded by the NS4 region of HCV genome have been developed [10-12]. The aim of this study was to compare two assays, based on the detection of genotype specific antibodies (serotyping assay) to an assay based on the us e of genotyping PCR (genotyping assay), for HCV typing.