Comparison of the NucliSENS EasyQ HIV-1 v2.0 with Abbott m2000rt RealTime HIV-1 assay for plasma RNA quantitation in different HIV-1 subtypes

Quantitation of HIV-1 RNA levels in plasma has significant prognostic value since high viral load concentrations in plasma are associated with a faster disease progression. Viral load testing became one the most important tools for monitoring HIV patients. New real time methodologies to quantify HIV viral load had arisen in the last decade. HIV is a virus with a high genetic variability, with the potential to negatively affect the performance of the viral load assays. Consequently, any new assay should be challenged against, at least, the most prevalent HIV-1 genetic variants. In the present study, the new version of NucliSENS EasyQ^® HIV-1 (Version 2.0) quantitative assay was compared with another ultra-sensitive test - Abbott RealTime HIV-1 - using 175 plasma samples from patients infected with several HIV-1 subtypes and recombinant forms: subtype B (41, 23%), subtype C (19, 11%), subtype G (76, 44%), and CRF02_AG (39, 22%). Overall, there was agreement between the assays in 95.43% of the samples. Both assays have a very good dynamic range [1.4-6.9] and [1.60-7.0] log₁₀ copies/mL and excellent correlation in samples with various subtypes. Based on the fact that no clinically significant differences were observed in the viral load measurements by these two assays, HIV-1 subtypes are quantified equally by both assays. However due to HIV diversity, mainly in regions were non B subtypes are predominant more evaluations are needed, so we do not recommend to switch platform during longitudinal viral load monitoring.