An evaluation of two simple synthetic peptide based anti-HIV assays

Two simple synthetic peptide based assays for anti-HIV (Agen SimpliRED and Genetic Systems GENIE) were evaluated for their ability to distinguish samples that contained anti-HIV-1 from samples that did not. The anti-HIV negative samples were from uninfected subjects that had either given false positive reactions on existing screening assays or indeterminate reactivity on Western blot. The anti-HIV-1 positive samples had been shown to contain antibody by a number of assays, and clinical details of the patients were known. The SimpliRED and GENIE assays demonstrated similar performances, with sensitivities of 99.77% and 100%, and specificities of 97.78% and 99.16%, respectively.