Detection of the 5?-untranslated region in HGV/GB-C hepatitis virus RNA by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction

Using newly-designed primers for semi-nested reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction to detect 5′-untranslated region of HGV GB-C hepatitis virus RNA, we screened 45 patients and found three HGV GB-C positive patients (with fulminant hepatitis and liver cirrhosis, and on hemodialysis). Restriction fragment length polymorphism and single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis revealed a similar pattern in all positive specimens. The sequence amplified by our primers might be a highly conserved sequence. We believe our primers are useful for screening of HGV GB-C virus RNA.