Accuracy to 2nd International HIV-1 RNA WHO Standard: assessment of three generations of quantitative HIV-1 RNA nucleic acid amplification tests.

Background: Standardization of quantitative HIV-1 tests to a global primary standard is required by regulatory authorities to ensure comparability of test results across different assays and platforms of different manufacturers.

Objectives And Study Design: Three generations of quantitative HIV-1 tests, the COBAS(®) AMPLICOR(®) HIV-1 Monitor Test, v1.5 (HIV-1 Monitor test v1.

Improved HIV-1 RNA quantitation by COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS TaqMan HIV-1 Test, v2.0 using a novel dual-target approach.

Background: HIV-1 RNA viral load is a key parameter for reliable treatment monitoring of HIV-1 infection. Accurate HIV-1 RNA quantitation can be impaired by primer and probe sequence polymorphisms as a result of tremendous genetic diversity and ongoing evolution of HIV-1. A novel dual HIV-1 target amplification approach was realized in the quantitative COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS TaqMan HIV-1 Test, v2.

The antiretroviral potency of emtricitabine is approximately 3-fold higher compared to lamivudine in dual human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection/competition experiments in vitro.

The increasing number of antiretroviral drugs leads to mounting possibilities of combinations for the antiretroviral therapy (ART) of HIV-1 infected patients. Thus, it is of interest to determine the most potent combination of antiretroviral drugs for the first ART to delay the development of drug resistance. We have investigated the differences in the inhibitory potencies of the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI) lamivudine (3TC) and emtricitabine (FTC) using an in vitro model based on simultaneous infection of T cells with drug-sensitive and drug-resistant viruses.