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Updated: Jun 21, 2026
Amplifying and Quantifying HIV-1 RNA in HIV Infected Individuals with Viral Loads Below the Limit of Detection by Standard Clinical Assays
Published on: September 26, 2011
Census and analysis of persistent false-negative results in serological diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus
J-C Plantier1, M Djemai, V Lemée
1Laboratoire de Virologie & Laboratoire associé au Centre National de Référence du VIH, Institut de Biologie Clinique, hôpital Charles Nicolle, CHU de Rouen, 1 rue de Germont, 76031 Rouen, France. jean-christophe.plantier@univ-rouen.fr
Abstract:
Human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) have a high level of genetic diversity. The outlier variants of HIV type 1 (HIV-1) group O are distantly related to HIV-1 group M. Their divergence has an impact on serological diagnosis, with a risk of false-negative results. In this study, we report 20 failure cases, involving patients with primary or chronic infection, in France and Cameroon between 2001 and 2008. Our results indicate that some assays detected group O infection much less efficiently than others. Two major reasons for these false-negative results were identified: the presence or absence of a group O-specific antigen (and the designed sequence) for the detection of antibodies and the greater envelope variability of group O than of group M strains. This study highlights the complexity of screening for these divergent variants and the need to evaluate test performance with a large panel of strains, due to the extensive diversity of group O variants.
