Typing of hepatitis C virus by a new method based on restriction fragment length polymorphism

A new restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis has been dev eloped for hepatitis C virus (HCV) typing in the viral 5' non-coding region and contiguous core region. These genomic sequences were chosen for the re lative nucleotide homology among different genotypes and for the presence o f polymorphic sites. By employing two endonucleases (Accl and Mbol) and, in some instances, a third one (EcoRII), we can unambiguously and reproducibl y 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 o f HCV-infected individuals reflecting a randomly collected population and a group of intravenous drug users. The accuracy of this method has been vali dated by comparison with INNOLiPA and by sequencing. Our approach represent s an improvement over previous RFLP methods, since typing is accurate and s impler.