Isolation of nucleic acids

A method for amplifying a human target nucleic acid from a fluid fraction prepared from human stool homogenate, the method comprising:

• i) treating a fluid fraction from a human stool homogenate with insoluble polyvinylpyrrolidone to bind inhibitor, if present, in an insoluble inhibitor complex, to produce a treated stool fluid;
• ii) exposing the treated stool fluid to a target sequence-specific capture reagent comprising particles attached to oligonucleotides complementary to at least a portion of human target nucleic acid, under conditions wherein the target sequence-specific capture reagent forms target sequence-specific capture reagent/human target nucleic acid capture complexes;
• iii) separating the capture complexes from the treated stool fluid;
• iv) recovering human target nucleic acid from the separated capture complexes of step iii) in a human target nucleic acid solution;
• and
• v) treating a portion of the human target nucleic acid solution in an amplification reaction mixture comprising DNA polymerase, wherein the amplification reaction mixture comprises primers for amplifying a region of a human target nucleic acid captured by the target sequence-specific capture reagent.