Hepatitis B virus detected in paper currencies in a densely populated city of India: A plausible source of horizontal transmission?

Figure 1 Representative gel electrophoresis on 1. 5% agarose gels depicting hepatitis B virus “S” gene-specific polymerase chain reaction products and relevant controls. This proves that none of the lab reagents/equipment were contaminated with hepatitis B virus: Negative control with nuclease-free water used for sample polymerase chain reactions (PCR (C1), negative control for primers SPL-3 & SPL-2, using fresh nuclease-free water (C2), nested SPL-4-5 PCR product with C1 (C1’), SPL-4-5 nested PCR product with C2 (C2’), first round PCR with SPL-3-2 primers yielding 1652 bp band (S5 and S6), SPL-3-2 PCR yielding no bands (S7-S10); second round nested PCRs with SPL-4-5 primers with S5-9 yielding 1277 bp band (S5’-S9’), SPL-4-5 nested PCR yielding no band (S10’) and a well left blank (i.e. loaded with no sample) (B). M is the molecular weight marker.