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Quantitative detection of hepatitis C virus genome in liver tissue and circulation by competitive reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction

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Abstract

We quantified hepatitis C virus RNA in 25 Japanese patients with chronic type C liver disease by competitive reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. The amount of the viral RNA in the serum (2×105−2×108 copies/ml) correlated with that in the liver tissue (108−1011 copies/g) (N=23,r=0.727,P<0.0001). One gram of the infected liver tissue contained 102−104 (geometric mean, 103,N=23) times as many copies of the viral RNA as did 1 ml of the serum. Liver tissues of chronic aggressive hepatitis contained significantly higher amounts of the viral RNA than those of chronic persistent hepatitis (P<0.05). These observations suggested that this method is useful to evaluate viral amount, and the amount of the circulating hepatitis C virus RNA could be used as a marker of the intrahepatic viral amounts, which might contribute to disease activity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The First Department of Internal Medicine, Okayama University Medical School, 2-5-1 Shikata-Cho, 700, Okayama, Japan

    Hiroshi Nakagawa MD, Hiroyuki Shimomura MD, Toshimi Hasui MD, Hideyuki Tsuji MD & Takao Tsuji MD

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  1. Hiroshi Nakagawa MD
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  2. Hiroyuki Shimomura MD
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  3. Toshimi Hasui MD
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  4. Hideyuki Tsuji MD
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  5. Takao Tsuji MD
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A part of this work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for non-A, non-B hepatitis research from the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Japan, Viral Hepatitis Research Foundation of Japan, and the Foundation of Sanyo Broadcasting.

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Nakagawa, H., Shimomura, H., Hasui, T. et al. Quantitative detection of hepatitis C virus genome in liver tissue and circulation by competitive reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Digest Dis Sci 39, 225–233 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02090190

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02090190

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