Study of proteins encoded by different fragments of c virus gene for detection hepatitis c infection

This study was carried out to evaluate proteins encoded by different fragments of HCV genes for detection hepatitis C infection. Eighty eight Iraqi hepatitis C patients were involved in this study, these patients attended the Gastroenterology Department of Baghdad Teaching Hospital during the period from December 2009 to March 2011. These patients included 58 males and 30 females with ages ranged between (16-64) year. The results of this study showed that 88 specimens were immunoreactive to one or more of the 4 HCV recombinant proteins, besides that 34 serum samples were collected from apparently healthy individuals (included 21 males and 13 females) they served as a control group, all the samples obtained from control group didn't show any reactivity to hepatitis C virus. Additionally, the positive rates of anti-capsid, anti-NS3,anti-NS4 and anti-NS5 were 77.2%,64.7%,55.6% and 46.5% respectively, while 13.6 % reacted to capsid protein, 5.7% reacted to NS3 protein, in addition, 3.4% reacted to NS4 protein, furthermore, 2.3% only reacted to NS5 protein. Finally, all the 88 specimens (100%) were immuno-reactive to the mixed proteins. In conclusion, Our results sustain different immunoreactivity of the HCV recombinant proteins encoded by different fragments of C virus gene, therefore the mixture of all the protein derived from HCV different regions should be applied in further HCV diagnostic test to detect hepatitis C infection.