title: Concordance between polymerase chain reaction and antibody detection in the diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection.
abstract: A highly sensitive nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) protocol was used to detect human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) DNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 271 HIV-1-seropositive patients, 240 HIV-1-seronegative subjects at increased risk for HIV-1 infection, 51 serologically indeterminate individuals, and 120 healthy blood donors. PCR was carried out in a multiplex nested configuration with pol and env region primer sets. HIV-1 DNA was detected in all of the HIV-1 seropositive patients. In contrast, HIV-1 DNA was not detected in any of the either seronegative or serologically indeterminate subjects. Only one of 37 seronegative regular sexual partners of HIV-1-infected patients who were followed longitudinally was found to seroconvert to HIV-1. However, HIV-1 DNA and antibody results were concordant in the four samples obtained from this subject prior to and after seroconversion. These results show an excellent concordance between HIV-1 DNA and antibody detection for diagnosis of HIV-1 infection and suggest that long-term HIV-1 infection in the absence of detectable antibody is likely to occur at a very low frequency.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Biologia Molecolare, Università di Siena, Italy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Romano
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Catucci
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: De Milito
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Venturi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zazzi
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Almi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gonnelli
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rubino
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Maestrini
authors.forename: P E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Valensin
mesh_terms: D015153:Blotting, Western; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D005260:Female; D015483:HIV Antibodies / Q000032:analysis*; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D007963:Leukocytes, Mononuclear / Q000737:chemistry; D008297:Male; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012698:Serologic Tests
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral; D015483:HIV Antibodies