Analysis of the Frequency of Mutations at Diagnostic Oligonucleotide Sites and Their Impact on the Efficiency of PCR for HIV-1.

The development of effective diagnostic kits for HIV-1 remains a pressing concern. We designed diagnostic oligonucleotides for HIV-1 real-time PCR to target the most conserved region of the HIV-1 genome and assessed the mutation frequency at annealing sites. Two databases of nucleotide sequences, Los Alamos and NCBI, were analyzed, revealing that more than 99% of the sequences either lack mutations or contain 1-2 mutations at the binding site of the forward and reverse primers.