Clinical Comparison Of Branched Dna And Reverse Transcriptase-Pcr And Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Amplification Assay For The Quantitation Of Circulating Recombinant Form_bc Hiv-1 Rna In Plasma

Objective: To investigate the correlation between three viral load assays for circulating recombinant form (CRF)_BC.Design: Recent studies in HIV-1 molecular epidemiology, reveals that CRF_BC is the dominant subtype of HIV-1 virus in mainland China, representing over 45% of the HIV-1 infected population. The performances of nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (NASBA), branched DNA (bDNA) and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were compared for the HIV-1 viral load detection and quantitation of CRF_BC in China.Methods: Sixteen HIV-1 positive and three HIV-1 negative samples were collected. Sequencing of the positive samples in the gp41 region was conducted. The HIV-1 viral load values were determined using bDNA, RT-PCR and NASBA assays. Deming regression analysis with SPSS 12.0 (SPS Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA) was performed for data analysis.Results: Sequencing and phylogenetic analysis of env gene (gp41) region of the] 6 HIV-1 positive clinical specimens from Guizhou Province in southwest China revealed the dominance of the subtype CRF_BC in that region. A good correlation of their viral load values was observed among three assays. Pearson's correlation between RT-PCR and bDNA is 0.969, Lg(VL)RT-PCR=0.969*Lg(VL)bDNA+0.55; Pearson's correlation between RT-PCR and NASBA is 0.968, Lg(VL)RT-PCR=0.968 * Lg(VL)NASBA+0.937; 0.937; Pearson's correlation between NASBA and bDNA is 0.980, Lg(VL)NASBA BA= 0.980 * Lg(VL)bDNA - 0.318.Conclusion: When testing with 3 different assays, RT-PCR, bDNA and NASBA, the group of 16 HIV-1 positive samples showed the viral load value was highest for RT-PCR, followed by bDNA then NASBA, which is consistent with the former results in subtype B. The three viral load assays are highly correlative for CRF_BC in China. (c) 2007 Wolters Kluwer Health-Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.