METHOD FOR DETECTION OF DRUG-SELECTED MUTATIONS IN THE HIV PROTEASE GENE

摘要

The present invention relates to a method for the rapid and reliable detection of drug-selected mutations in the HIV protease gene allowing the simultaneous characterization of a range of codons involved in drug resistance using specific sets of probes optimized to function together in a reverse-hybridization assay. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for determining the susceptibility to antiviral drugs of HIV viruses in a biological sample, with said method comprising: a) if need be, releasing, isolating or concentrating the polynucleic acids present in the sample; b) if need be amplifying the relevant part of the protease gene of HIV with at least one suitable primer pair; c) hybrydizing the polynucleic acids of step a) or b) with at least one of the following probes: probes specifically hybridizing to a target sequence comprising codon 30; probes specifically hybridizing to a target sequence comprising codon 46 and/or 48; probes specifically hybridizing to a target sequence comprising codon 50; probes specifically hybridizing to a target sequence comprising codon 54; probes specifically hybridizing to a target sequence comprising codon 82 and/or 84; probes specifically hybridizing to a target sequence comprising codon 90; or the complement of said probes; further characterized in that said probes specifically hybridize to any of the target sequences presented in figure (1), or the complement of said target sequences; d) inferring from the result of step c) whether or not a mutation giving rise to drug resistance is present in any of said target sequences.