Abstract
Since NAT is a highly sensitive technique for detecting low amounts of viral genomes, it is applied to the screening of source plasma to reduce the risk of viral infection through plasma-derived blood products.
For this purpose we have used an NAT test for HBV, HCV and HIV by PCR in pooled plasma from of 500 individuals since November, 1997.
Because nucleic acid extraction is the most time-consuming and laborious job in this NAT test, an automated method was sought to reduce the operation time and human error. This would allow processing of more samples than the currently used extraction.
Recently, Roche Diagnostic K. K. has developed an automated extraction system named GT-12 and an extraction reagent for HCV RNA. In this study we compared GT-12 with the manual technique. The results show GT-12 extraction caused no contamination and had good reproducibility without any inter-day variation. Although GT-12 is less sensitive than the manual extraction method, it is sensitive enough to detect 100IU/ml as required by the CPMP guideline (CPMP/BWP/390/97). Operation time of extraction by GT-12 was about 2/3 of that by manual extraction. Introduction of GT-12 may contribute to the increased efficiency of the NAT test.
