Detection of hepatitis C virus by single-step hairpin primer RT-PCR.

We developed a novel single-step virus detection system using the fluorescent molecule with a hairpin primer on the reverse transcription (RT)-polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Primers that are specific to Hepatitis C virus (HCV) having a hairpin tag at the 5'-end were used for RT and PCR. The HCV-RNA template was reverse transcribed by reverse transcriptase with the hairpin primer (HP), and the resulting cDNA was amplified directly by HP-PCR (RT-HP-PCR). Using the RT-HP-PCR, we succeeded in demonstrating the detection of HCV-RNA in single-step. The RT-HP-PCR selectively detected HCV-RNA extracted from patients' sera containing contaminant materials. The method could be applicable to the quantitative detection of HCV.