Desenvolupament de tècniques de biologia molecular (PCR i Hibridació in situ) i immunohistoquímia per diagnosi i monitorització de l' infecció per virus de l'hepatitis C

Postransfusion hepatitis continues to occur in more than 10% of transfusion recipients and because of its extraordinary tendency towards chronicity this infection remains a health problem of primary importance. Recently, the agent responsible for this infection has been identified by cloning and already designated as the hepatitis C virus (HCV). This virus has a positive single-stranded RNA genome of about 10 Kb which is distantly related to that of the flaviviruses. An antibody ELISA test kit is currently available which may identify up to 60% of HCV infectious donors. The proposed project has been designed for the development of techniques for diagnosis and monitoring of the HCV infection, through the use of nucleic acid hybridisation with specific probes (Northern, Southern, dot blot and "in situ") as well as by gene amplification methods like the polymerase chain reaction, all of which may by useful to measure like the polymerase chain reaction, all of which may be useful to measure infectivity, to assess the natural history of the infection and to investigate the efficacy of new therapeutic procedures