Research progress of hepatitis C virus nucleic acid detection technology

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects more than 200 million people globally and its increasing incidence is placing a heavy economic burden on resource-poor countries. Effective HCV diagnosis is of guiding significance for treatment selection and monitoring. Techniques for detection of HCV infection include serological and nucleic acid detection. Serological assay is simple and easy to operate for initial HCV diagnosis. However, the window phase is long, so the active phase of the virus or previous infection cannot be determined. Nucleic acid detection has high sensitivity and wide linear range, which is the direct evidence to determine virus infection. The traditional thermal cycle-based nucleic acid amplification technology has been widely used in clinical laboratories. The development of isothermal nucleic acid amplification technology overcomes the limitations of traditional amplification technology, and it can be used as a tool for Point-of-care Testing (POCT), which has great potential and particularly suitable to be used in low-resource areas with high HCV prevalence, such as Africa and Southeast Asia. In this paper, we outline the current advance and development trends in the HCV molecular diagnosis. Key words: Hepatitis C virus; Nucleic acid test; Isothermal nucleic and amplification