Rapid detection of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 group M by a reverse transcription-loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay

A rapid one-step reverse transcription-loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay targeting the pol-integrase gene was developed to detect human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) group M. This HIV-1 RT-LAMP assay is simple and rapid, and amplification can be completed within 35 min under isothermal conditions at 60 °C. The 100% detection limit of HIV-1 RT-LAMP was determined using a standard strain (WHO HIV-1 [97/656]) in octuplicate and found to be 120 copies/ml. The RT-LAMP assay was evaluated for use for clinical diagnosis using plasma samples collected from 57 HIV-1-infected and 40 uninfected individuals in Cameroon, where highly divergent HIV-1 strains are prevalent. Of the 57 samples from infected individuals, 56 harbored group-M HIV-1 strains, such as subtypes A, B, G, F2, and circulating recombinant forms (CRFs) _01, _02, _09, _11, _13; all were RT-LAMP positive. One sample harboring group-O HIV-1 and the 40 HIV-1-uninfected samples were RT-LAMP negative. These findings indicate that HIV-1 RT-LAMP can detect HIV-1 group-M RNA from plasma samples rapidly and with high sensitivity and specificity. These data also suggest that this RT-LAMP assay can be useful for confirming HIV diagnosis, particularly in resource-limited settings.