Hepatitis C virus genotyping based on 5' noncoding sequence analysis (Trugene)

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotyping of samples from 184 patients with chronic HCV infection by the Trugene 5'NC genotyping kit, based on sequence analysis of the 5' noncoding region (5' NCR), and the InnoLiPA assay was evaluated. In addition to these methods, the 184 samples were also analyzed by sequencing of part of the NS5B of the HCV genome after in-house PCR amplification, as a means of validating results obtained with the 5' NCR. The distribution of the genotypes typed by NS5B sequence analysis was as follows: 1a, 41 samples; 1b, 58 samples; 1d, 1 sample; 2a, 5 samples; 2b, 2 samples; 2c, 7 samples; 3a, 46 samples; 4a, 7 samples; 4c, 1 samples; 4e, 9 samples; 5a, 6 samples; 6a, 1 sample. The Trugene and InnoLiPA assays gave concordant results within HCV types in 100% of cases. The ability to discriminate at the subtype level was 76 and 74% for the Trugene and the InnoLiPA assays, respectively.