RESEARCH ARTICLE


Minor Variant Detection at Different Template Concentrations in HIV-1 Phenotypic and Genotypic Tropism Testing



Ina Vandenbroucke*, §, Veerle Van Eygen§, Evelien Rondelez, Hans Vermeiren, Kurt Van Baelen, Lieven J Stuyver
Virco BVBA, Generaal De Wittelaan L11 B4, 2800 Mechelen, Belgium

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2008
Volume: 2
First Page: 8
Last Page: 14
Publisher Id: TOVJ-2-8
DOI: 10.2174/1874357900802010008

Article History:

Received Date: 11/2/2008
Revision Received Date: 21/2/2008
Acceptance Date: 25/2/2008
Electronic publication date: 18/3/2008
Collection year: 2008

2008 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

* Address correspondence to this author at Virco BVBA, Generaal De Wittelaan L11B4, 2800 Mechelen, Belgium; Tel: +32 15 461 486; Fax: +32 15 285 634; E-mail: ivanden3@vrcbe.jnj.com
§ Contributed equally to this work.


Abstract

The clinical trials of maraviroc showed that treatment failure was mostly associated with lack of X4 virus detection at baseline. The detection limit for X4 in tropism assays is ill defined around 10%. In the current study, quantification of X4-tropic minority populations was assessed on artificial mixed samples and 38 clinical isolates. These mixtures were subjected to tropism “clonal genotyping” or “population phenotyping”. The detection of minority variants was dependant on the input of amplifiable copies. At VL > 4 log IU/ml, X4 quantification was deemed reliable. PCR founder effect and clonal resampling might result in misrepresentation of the minority species concentration at VL < 4 log. Fourteen of the clinical isolates contained dual/mixed X4-tropic virus, 5 of which were below 10% of the virus population. Currently, there is no indication what level of X4 would lead to treatment failure. Assays aiming for the detection of minority species should express results in function of VL.