The development of an antigen capture polymerase chain reaction assay to detect and type human enteroviruses

Antigen capture polymerase chain reaction (AC-PCR) is a technique that combines the advantages of PCR with those of antibody mediated methods, to detect and type human enteroviruses. Virus particles are captured by specific antisera and RNA is released by heat denaturation to generate the substrate for reverse transcription and PCR. Use of this technique results in purification of human enteroviruses from tissue culture and 10% faecal samples in a serotype-specific manner allowing both rapid detection and a direct correlation between serological and genetic typing methods. The sensitivity of AC-PCR was comparable with that of PCR protocols employing a conventional organic solvent based extraction procedure.