| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3368920 | Journal of Clinical Virology | 2014 | 5 Pages |
•We cloned, sequenced, and group classified 22 HIV-2 DNA plasmids.•The clones comprised of 11 full length HIV-2 LTR and 11 pol sequences.•There were eight HIV-2 group A and three group B in each regions.•Plasmids are useful for HIV-2 molecular diagnostic assay development and evaluation.
BackgroundCurrently, no FDA-approved HIV-2 nucleic acid assay is commercially available in the United States, although several laboratories have developed in-house assays to confirm HIV-2 infections. A major limitation in the development of novel HIV-2 diagnostic assays is the lack of reference materials that can be used to evaluate, optimize, and monitor assay performance.Study designEleven viral stocks of HIV-2 isolates from various West African countries, including the Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Guinea-Bissau, were used to clone the entire LTR and pol regions from each virus.ResultsWe successfully cloned, sequenced, and group classified 22 HIV-2 DNA plasmids including 11 full length LTR (∼849 bp) and 11 pol (∼2995 bp) sequences. There were eight HIV-2 group A and three group B in both the LTR and pol regions.ConclusionsThis reference panel provides a robust, quantifiable, renewable, and non-infectious set of reagents that can be used for the development and evaluation of new HIV-2 molecular diagnostic assays and quality assurance and quality control reagents for use in the clinical laboratories.
