Patent ID: 7056658

Claim:
A method for detecting antibodies to hepatitis C virus (HCV) in a biological sample suspected of containing antibodies, the method comprising the steps of contacting said sample with a multiple copy epitope sequence comprising the general structural formula (I): (A) x −(B) y −(C) z (I) wherein (I) is a linear amino acid sequence; (B) is an amino acid sequence containing at least five and not more than 1,000 amino acids which amino acids correspond to a naturally occurring antigenic determinant of a hepatitis C virus (HCV) polyprotein; (A) and (C) are each amino acid sequences different from (B) and different from each other and are each independently an amino acid sequence containing at least five and not more than 1,000 amino acids which amino acids represent an antigenic determinant that is not adjacent to (B) in naturally-occurring strains of HCV; x is an integer of 2 or more and at least two (A)s are the same antigenic determinant from the same HCV strain; y is an integer of 2 or more and at least two (B)s are the same or an equivalent antigenic determinant from different HCV strains; and wherein (A), (B) and (C) are in any linear order; under conditions that permit antibody-antigen reaction; and detecting the presence of immune complexes of said antibodies and said antigens.