TABLE 3.

Quantitative contributions of each type of HCV to total 5′ UTR RT-nested PCR products obtained by mixing different amounts of type-specific HCV RNAs^a

Virus types mixed	Ratio of types in mix	Amount of product (percentage of pixels ± SD) from type:
		1	2	3
1 and 2	90:10	48.7 ± 5.0	51.2 ± 5.0
	50:50	30.0 ± 3.3	70.0 ± 3.3
	10:90	12.7 ± 7.5	87.2 ± 7.5
1 and 3	90:10	53.3 ± 12.1		46.7 ± 12.1
	50:50	53.7 ± 15.6		46.2 ± 15.6
	10:90	25.2 ± 5.1		74.8 ± 5.1
2 and 3	90:10		90.5 ± 4.1	9.5 ± 4.1
	50:50		73.7 ± 8.2	26.2 ± 8.2
	10:90		59.7 ± 8.7	40.3 ± 8.7

^aData shown are the averages of results from six (for mixtures of types 1 and 3 and 2 and 3) or eight (for mixture of types 1 and 2) independent experiments with 13 viremic serum samples. MMLV reverse transcriptase and 5′ UTR primer sets 1 and 2 were used for experiments. Reverse transcription performed by using Tth reverse transcriptase with another batch of five serum samples (not described in this study) rendered similar results. P values for comparisons between product ratios were as follows: for types 1 and 2 versus types 2 and 3, <0.0001 with all mix ratios; for types 1 and 2 versus types 1 and 3, not significant with a 90:10 mix ratio, 0.0060 with a 50:50 mix ratio, and 0.0044 with a 10:90 mix ratio; for types 2 and 3 versus types 1 and 3, <0.0001 with 90:10 and 10:90 mix ratios and not significant with a 50:50 mix ratio.