Development of sensitive ddPCR assays to reliably quantify the proviral DNA reservoir in all common circulating HIV subtypes and recombinant forms.

Introduction: The latent reservoir is the main barrier on the road to HIV cure, and clinical approaches towards eradication are often evaluated by their effect on proviral DNA. To ensure inclusiveness and representativeness in HIV cure studies, proviral DNA quantification assays that are able to detect all common circulating HIV clades are urgently needed. Here, three HIV DNA assays targeting three different genomic regions were evaluated for their sensitivity and subtype-tolerance using digital PCR.