Impact of naturally occurring amino acid variations on the detection of HIV-1 p24 in diagnostic antigen tests.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The detection of HIV-1 p24 antigen in diagnostic tests relies on antibodies binding to conserved areas of the protein to cover the full range of HIV-1 subtypes. Using a panel of 43 different virus-like particles (VLPs) expressing Gag from clinical HIV-1 isolates, we previously found that some highly sensitive tests completely failed to detect p24 of certain VLPs, seemingly unrelated to their subtype. Here we aimed to investigate the reason for this failure, hypothesising that it might be due to single amino acid variations in conserved epitopes.

Methods

Using amino acid alignment, we identified single amino acid variations at position 16 or 170 of p24, unique to those VLPs that failed to be detected in certain diagnostic tests. Through DNA-mutagenesis, these amino

SUBMITTER: Vetter BN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4625719 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature