Clinical evaluation of a colorimetric oligonucleotide chip for genotyping hepatitis C virus

Impact of nursing intervention on improving HIV, hepatitis knowledge and mental health among homeless young adults

In a prospective two-group pilot study of a convenient sample of 156 young adults, we assessed improvement in HIV cognitive and transmission knowledge, hepatitis knowledge, and mental health at six-month follow-up. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed higher six-month scores in total HIV/AIDS knowledge, HIV/AIDS cognitive knowledge, HIV transmission knowledge and HBV and HCV knowledge at 6 months in the Hepatitis Health Promotion (HHP) group compared to the Art Messaging (AM) group. Moreover, homeless young participants who reported having significant others in their lives, and excellent or very good health did better than their counterparts. Youth who were attempting to get their lives together had higher scores for all types of knowledge except HBV. Hallucinogen users had significantly worse scores on all knowledge measures than non-users. Lastly, the HHP group revealed an improvement in psychological well-being compared to the AM group.

Hepatitis C virus genotyping using an oligonucleotide microarray based on the NS5B sequence

The genotype of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is essential for determining treatment duration in clinical practice and for epidemiological and clinical studies. Currently, few genotyping assays that determine the HCV subtype are available. This report describes a microarray-based molecular technique for identifying the HCV genotype and subtype. It uses low-density hydrogel-based biochips containing genotype- and subtype-specific oligonucleotides based on the sequences of the NS5B region of the HCV genome. The biochip contains 120 oligonucleotides that identify genotypes 1 to 6 and 36 (1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 1e, 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d, 2i, 2j, 2k, 2l, 2m, 3a, 3b, 3k, 4a, 4c, 4d, 4f, 4h, 4i, 4k, 4n, 4o, 4p, 4r, 4t, 5a, 6a, 6b, 6d, 6g, 6h, and 6k) subtypes. The procedure included amplification of a 380-nucleotide (nt) fragment of NS5B and its hybridization on the biochip. Tests on 345 HCV-positive samples showed that the assay agreed with NS5B sequencing 100% for the genotype and 99.7% for the subtype. The hybridization on the microarray and the NS5B sequence were in 100% agreement for identifying the most common subtypes, 1a, 1b, 4a, 4d, and 3a. This approach is a promising tool for HCV genotyping, especially for implementing the new anti-HCV drugs that require accurate identification of clinically relevant subtypes.