Line Probe Assay for Detecting Mutations in HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase

The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) belongs to the family of positive-stranded, enveloped RNA viruses with a DNA intermediate step (retroviruses). Because of the lack of fidelity of the reverse transcriptase (RT), the replication is error-prone, and the infection is characterized by its quasi-species nature. Antiretroviral treatment with such compounds as zidovudine (AZT), zalcitabine (ddC), didanosine (ddI), stavudine (d4T), and lamivudine (3TC) select for quasispecies variants that are resistant to these compounds (1). The detection of these variants is clinically important because they may affect the outcome of the treatment (2).