Discordances with HIV-1 RNA quantitative determinations by three commercial assays in Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo

作者：Bruzzone Bianca^*; Bisio Francesca; Caligiuri Patrizia; Mboungou Franc A Mayinda; Nigro Nicola; Sticchi Laura; Ventura Agostina; Saladini Francesco; Zazzi Maurizio; Icardi Giancarlo; Viscoli Claudio

来源：Journal of Virological Methods, 2014, 203: 102-106.

DOI：10.1016/j.jviromet.2014.02.030

• HIV-RNA
• Viral load
• Real-time PCR
• Non-B subtypes
• Africa
• Kento-Muana

Accurate HIV-1 RNA quantitation is required to support the scale up of antiretroviral therapy in African countries. Extreme HIV-1 genetic variability in Africa may affect the ability of commercially available assays to detect and quantify HIV-1 RNA accurately. The aim of this study was to compare three real-time PCR assays for quantitation of plasma HIV-1 RNA levels in patients from the Republic of Congo, an area with highly diversified HIV-1 subtypes and recombinants.
The Abbott RealTime HIV-1, BioMerieux HIV-1 EasyQ test 1.2 and Cobas AmpliPrep/CobasTaqMan HIV-1 1.0 were compared for quantitation of HIV-1 RNA in 37 HIV-1 seropositive pregnant women enrolled in the Kento-Mwana project for prevention of mother-to-child transmission in Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo. The sample panel included a variety of HIV-1 subtypes with as many as 21 (56.8%) putative unique recombinant forms.
Qualitative detection of HIV-1 RNA was concordant by all three assays in 33/37 (89.2%) samples. Of the remaining 4 (10.8%) samples, all were positive by Roche, three by Abbott and none by BioMerieux. Differences exceeding 1 Log in positive samples were found in 4/31 (12.9%), 10/31 (32.3%) and 5/31 (16.1%) cases between Abbott and BioMerieux, Roche and BioMerieux, and Abbott and Roche, respectively.
In this sample panel representative of highly polymorphic HIV-1 in Congo, the agreement among the three assays was moderate in terms of HIV-1 RNA detectability and rather inconsistent in terms of quantitation.

• 出版日期2014-7