Evaluation and Design of Affordable and Novel HIV-1 Drug Resistance Assays:
Date
2006-11-17T11:41:08Z
Authors
Wallis, Carole Lorraine
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Abstract
Approximately 5 million individuals are infected with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The
South African government has initiated a National Anti-retroviral therapy (ARV) Program
to manage this disease. The emergence of drug resistance to ARV therapy is of great
concern. Commercial gold standard sequence-based genotyping assays for monitoring
resistance are unaffordable.
This project aimed at developing affordable methods to detect specific point mutations
relevant to HIV-1 subtype C. The Oligonucleotide Ligation assay (OLA), a real-time PCR
assay and a Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) assay were explored.
Results were compared to the Viroseq genotyping assay. OLA performed poorly on HIV-1
subtype C samples and needs modification. The real-time PCR assay using short Minor
Groove Binding probes, accurately detected the K65R mutation. The Mae III RFLP assay
detected all V106M mutations accurately. Longitudinal cohort studies are required to
confirm relevant mutations, appropriate assays and algorithms for resistance monitoring in
HIV-1 subtype C.
Description
Faculty of Health Sciences,
Master of Science in Medicine,
9803855e
Keywords
HIV, PCR, ARV, South Africa, disease