Evaluation of three techniques for detection of IL28B SNP: A prognostic tool for HCV treatment outcome.

OBJECTIVE: The study was aimed to evaluate the specificity, cost and turnaround time of three different techniques that can be used for analyzing the single nucleotide polymorphism of interleukin 28B (IL28B) rs129796860.

METHODS: DNA from peripheral blood samples of 111 patients with chronic hepatitis C were genotyped using three types of genotyping methods: direct sequencing, SNaPshot polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP).

RESULTS: Three distinct profiles for IL28B rs12979860 alleles (CC, CT and TT) were obtained with direct sequencing, SNaPshot PCR and PCR-RFLP and the results were consistent among all three methods.

CONCLUSION: For routine medical practice, screening IL28B rs12979860 can be performed by PCR-RFLP, which is efficient and reliable as well as cost-effective.