Ultrasensitive monitoring of HIV-1 viral load by a low-cost real-time reverse transcription-PCR assay with internal control for the 5' long terminal repeat domain.
BACKGROUND
Current HIV-1 viral-load assays are too expensive for resource-limited settings. In some countries, monitoring of antiretroviral therapy is now more expensive than treatment itself. In addition, some commercial assays have shown shortcomings in quantifying rare genotypes.


METHODS
We evaluated real-time reverse transcription-PCR with internal control targeting the conserved long terminal repeat (LTR) domain of HIV-1 on reference panels and patient samples from Brazil (n = 1186), South Africa (n = 130), India (n = 44), and Germany (n = 127).


RESULTS
The detection limit was 31.9 IU of HIV-1 RNA/mL of plasma (> 95% probability of detection, Probit analysis). The internal control showed inhibition in 3.7% of samples (95% confidence interval, 2.32%-5.9%; n = 454; 40 different runs). Comparative qualitative testing yielded the following: Roche Amplicor vs LTR assay (n = 431 samples), 51.7% vs 65% positives; Amplicor Ultrasensitive vs LTR (n = 133), 81.2% vs 82.7%; BioMerieux NucliSens HIV-1 QT (n = 453), 60.5% vs 65.1%; Bayer Versant 3.0 (n = 433), 57.7% vs 55.4%; total (n = 1450), 59.0% vs 63.8% positives. Intra-/interassay variability at medium and near-negative concentrations was 18%-51%. The quantification range was 50-10,000,000 IU/mL. Viral loads for subtypes A-D, F-J, AE, and AG yielded mean differences of 0.31 log(10) compared with Amplicor in the 10(3)-10(4) IU/mL range. HIV-1 N and O were not detected by Amplicor, but yielded up to 180 180.00 IU/mL in the LTR assay. Viral loads in stored samples from all countries, compared with Amplicor, NucliSens, or Versant, yielded regression line slopes (SD) of 0.9 (0.13) (P < 0.001 for all).


CONCLUSIONS
This method offers all features of commercial assays and covers all relevant genotypes. It could allow general monitoring of antiretroviral therapy in resource-limited settings.
Drosten
Christian
C
Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany. drosten@bni-hamburg.de
Panning
Marcus
M
Drexler
Jan Felix
JF
Hänsel
Florian
F
Pedroso
Celia
C
Yeats
Jane
J
de Souza Luna
Luciano Kleber
LK
Samuel
Matthew
M
Liedigk
Britta
B
Lippert
Ute
U
Stürmer
Martin
M
Doerr
Hans Wilhelm
HW
Brites
Carlos
C
Preiser
Wolfgang
W
D001938:Brazil; D005838:Genotype; D005858:Germany; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000821:virology; D016325:HIV Long Terminal Repeat; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D011336:Probability; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D012044:Regression Analysis; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013019:South Africa; D019562:Viral Load
D012367:RNA, Viral