[Establishment and application of reverse transcription-nested polymerase chain reaction for detection of hepatitis E RNA in serum].

A reverse transcription-nested polymerase chain reaction (RT-nPCR) for detection of hepatitis E virus (HEV) RNA in serum was established using two pairs of oligonucleotide acid from open reading frame 1 and 2 (ORF1 and ORF2) of HEV cDNA as the inner and outer primers. Eleven serial sera from two rhesus monkeys experimentally infected with HEV were tested for HEV RNA with established RT-nPCR. HEV RNA became detectable in these two monkeys on the sixth day and the ninth day, respectively, and persisted up to the 17th and the 22nd day after infection, respectively. Twenty-eight serum specimens of the 41 patients with acute sporadic hepatitis E were HEV RNA positive (68.3%). Proportions of positive HEV RNA in patients sera collected one to ten days, 11 to 20 days and 21 to 34 days after their onset of the disease were 72.7% (16/22), 70.0% (7/10) and 55.5% (5/9), respectively. It suggests that viremia of HEV lasts a shorter period, and proportion of serum positive HEV RNA decreases with the course of the disease.