A highly prevalent polymorphism at codon 72 of HIV-1 reverse transcriptasein Argentina prevents hybridization reaction at codon 74 in the LiPA genotyping test

The aim of this study was to compare the performance of two commercial drug -resistance HIV-1 genotyping kits: LiPA (Innogenetics, Belgium) and TruGene (Visible Genetics, Canada). Samples from 103 HIV-I infected individuals fr om Argentina were studied. The average correlation between the two methods was 92.81%. More codons could be analysed by TruGene than by LiPA (610/618 and 541/618 codons, respectively). The sequences of the samples and the LiP A probes were aligned showing that a silent mutation at codon 72 (AGA --> A GG) of the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, which was not recognised by the LiP A probes, was present in 35/36 non-reactive samples for position 74. The ov erall prevalence of this polymorphism in the population studied was 39.81%. When sequences from different parts of the world were analysed 189/3395 (5 .63%) carried the mutation at codon 72, while 23/133 (17.29%) of the sequen ces from Latin America (excluding Argentina) had this mutation. In both cas es, the prevalence of this polymorphism in the Argentinean population was s ignificantly higher. This highlights the importance of carrying out studies on the performance of genotyping kits outside the United States and Europe , especially in areas where non-B HIV-I subtypes are prevalent. (C) 2001 El sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.