HIV-1 resistant strains acquired at the time of primary infection massively fuel the cellular reservoir and persist for lengthy periods of time.

Objective: Characterization of the early establishment of the viral reservoir in patients acquiring resistant strains at primary HIV-1 infection (PHI), and longitudinal analysis of resistance mutations in circulating virions and intracellular HIV strains.

Patients And Methods: Drug-resistance was compared between HIV RNA and peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC)-HIV DNA at the time of PHI in 44 patients enrolled in the Primo Cohort and harbouring plasma HIV-1 resistant to at least one antiretroviral drug. Longitudinal monitoring of viral load and resistance genotype was performed in plasma-HIV RNA and PBMC HIV DNA for at least 24 months in a subset of 10 patients.

Group o human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection that escaped detection in two immmunoassays.

We report a case of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 group O infection not detected by two highly sensitive immunoassays. The sera were strongly reactive to the V3 peptide of group O but not to the gp41 immunodominant epitope. Gp41 was sequenced, confirming that this virus belonged to group O.

French national sentinel survey of antiretroviral drug resistance in patients with HIV-1 primary infection and in antiretroviral-naive chronically infected patients in 2001-2002.

Objective: To survey the frequency of genotypic antiretroviral resistance and the spread of non-B subtypes in patients with primary HIV-1 infection (2001-2002) and in treatment-naive chronically HIV-1-infected patients (2001).

Methods: Plasma samples from 303 patients with acute HIV-1 infection (Primo study) and 363 treatment-naive patients with chronic HIV-1 infection (Odyssee study) were tested for genotypic resistance. Resistance mutations were identified from the International AIDS Society Resistance Testing-USA panel and resistant viruses were defined according to the French Agence Nationale de Recherches sur le SIDA (ANRS) resistance algorithm.

Stable prevalence of genotypic drug resistance mutations but increase in non-B virus among patients with primary HIV-1 infection in France.

Objective: To evaluate the frequency of drug-resistant HIV-1 viral strains from patients presenting with primary infection in 1999-2000 and to survey the molecular epidemiology of these viruses circulating in France.

Methods: Resistance mutations were detected by sequencing the reverse transcriptase and the protease genes in plasma samples from 249 individuals. Phylogenetic analysis was performed on the reverse transcriptase genes.