Hepatitis C Virus Genotyping by Melting Curve Analysis in West Azerbaijan, Northwest of Iran

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has contaminated almost 170 million people worldwide. The HCV genotype is a good predictor of response to antiviral therapies and prognosis. In this study, we tried by using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and melting curve analysis, to identify the HCV genotype isolated from affected patients. Using PCR and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), serum sample of 310 suspicious patients with HCV were screened. Applying QIAamp Viral RNA Mini-kit, the viral RNA was collected from serum samples of 160 positive patients. Using one-step RT-PCR protocol, genotypes of the isolated HCV were specified according to the temperature melting (Tm) ranges. The frequency distribution of the 5 detected HCV genotypes (i.e., 1a/b, 2a/c, 4, 2b, and 3a) in 160 cases, were as follows: 77 (48.12%) were genotype 3a; 35(21.87%) had genotype 2b; 19 (11.87%) were 2a/c; 16 (10.0%) were 4; and 13 (8.12%) had genotype 1a/b. The most common HCV genotype in West Azerbaijan province in the Northwest of Iran is type 3a. We therefore concluded that it is possible to used PCR for routine HCV genotyping.