Effect of primer selection on estimates of GB virus C (GBV-C) prevalence and response to antiretroviral therapy for optimal testing for GBV-C viremia

• Autor(a) principal: Souza, I. E. [UNIFESP]
• Data de Publicação: 2006
• Outros Autores: Allen, J. B., Xiang, J., Klinzman, D., Diaz, R., Zhang, S., Chaloner, K., Zdunek, D., Hess, G., Williams, C. F., Benning, L., Stapleton, J. T.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNIFESP
• Texto Completo: http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/JCM.02663-05; http://repositorio.unifesp.br/handle/11600/29113

GB virus C (GBV-C; also called hepatitis G virus) is a common cause of infection associated with prolonged survival among HIV-infected individuals. the prevalences of GBV-C viremia vary widely in different studies, and there has been poor agreement among different laboratories performing GBV-C RNA detection in quality control studies. To determine the optimal method of measuring GBV-C RNA in clinical samples, samples obtained from 939 HIV-infected subjects were studied using reverse transcription (RT)-PCR methods amplifying four separate regions of the GBV-C genome. Primers amplifying the E2 coding region were 100% specific; however, their sensitivity was only 76.6%. in contrast, primers amplifying three additional conserved regions of the GBV-C genome (the 5' nontranslated region and the nonstructural protein-coding regions 3 and 5A) were more sensitive but produced higher rates of false-positive results. Using low-specificity primer sets influenced the significance of association between GBV-C viremia and response to antiretroviral therapy. Using a quantitative GBV-C RNA method, the GBV-C RNA concentration did not correlate with baseline or set point HIV RNA levels; however, a correlation between negative, low, and high GBV-C RNA levels and increasing reduction in HIV RNA following antiretroviral therapy was observed. Subjects with both GBV-C E2 antibody and viremia had significantly lower GBV-C RNA levels than did viremic subjects without E2 antibody. These studies demonstrate that accurate detection of GBV-C RNA by nested RT-PCR requires the use of primers representing multiple genome regions. Analyses based on testing with single primers do not lead to reliable conclusions about the association between GBV-C infection and clinical outcomes.