Problems with amplifying the V3 regions were anticipated for tests of proviral DNA from patients on long-term suppressive ART, as the overall load
of APO866 latently infected cells is generally low in these individuals. Additionally, a high level of quasispecies variability might lead to problems in reliably interpreting the sequencing results. The overall number of amplification failures as well as sequencing failures, however, remained low, both for the plasma RNA and for the proviral DNA samples. With failure rates of 8.6% for plasma RNA and 10.4% for proviral DNA, the success ratio of GTT was higher than that reported for the Trofile™ assay, where the number of nonreportable results can be
as high as 25% [30]. In conclusion, the results of this study clearly demonstrate that coreceptor tropism predictions AZD0530 order from viral RNA and proviral DNA V3 sequences are highly comparable, both for samples collected simultaneously in viraemic patients and for longitudinal pre-ART plasma RNA and on-ART proviral DNA samples collected from patients with low or undetectable viraemia. These results suggest new possibilities for the implementation of GTT strategies in routine clinical practice, which would increase the number of HIV-infected individuals able to benefit from treatment with a coreceptor antagonist. The authors would like to thank the clinicians and study nurses of the AIDS Reference Centre of Ghent University Hospital, CHU de Liège, the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp and Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Department of Infectious Diseases of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Saint-Pierre and the National Service of Infectious Diseases of the Centre Hospitalier of Luxembourg. We are especially grateful for the contributions of K. Kabeya, E. Florence, M. Moutschen, Nicola Mackie, V. CYTH4 Lenoir, L. Riesi, A. Van Den Heuvel, F. Echahidi,
O. Soetens, E. Vancutsem, E. Demecheleer, K. Dauwe and D. Staelens. Conflicts of interest: Linos Vandekerckhove is supported by the Flemish Fund for Scientific Research. “
“Lipoatrophy can complicate thymidine analogue nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (tNRTI)-based antiretroviral therapy (ART). Lipoatrophy may be less likely with ART including ritonavir-boosted lopinavir (LPV/r). Small, placebo-controlled studies found that uridine (in tNRTI recipients) and pravastatin improved HIV lipoatrophy over 12 weeks. Today, most patients with lipoatrophy receive non-tNRTI-based ART; the effect of uridine in such patients is unknown. We performed a prospective, randomized trial in lipoatrophic adults with plasma HIV RNA<50 HIV-1 RNA copies/mL on tNRTI-sparing ART including LPV/r.