Detection of mouse hepatitis virus in mouse colonies using the nested polymerase chain reaction

A reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) in hepatic tissue was developed. To circumvent possible failures in RT-PCR amplifications, a second round of PCR with internal primers was used to confirm the specificity and increase the sensitivity of the test. Using this method specific amplification of MHV sequences was observed in 18 out of 20 mouse colonies examined