Investigation of HIV-1 primary drug resistance mutations in antiretroviral therapy-naive cases

Abstract

Following the report of the first AIDS case in Turkey in 1985, the total number of HIV-positive and AIDS cases is 6802 near the end of June 2013, according to the data obtained from the Turkish Ministry of Health. Although combined antiretroviral drug therapy has greatly improved the life-span and the life quality of the patients, HIV-1 drug resistance poses a major obstacle for treatment outcome. The aim of this study was to detect the presence of primary drug resistance in antiretroviral therapy-naive cases. Plasma samples obtained from 190 cases (143 male, 28 female, 19 unknown; age range: 20-72 yrs; mean age: 34.7 yrs) sent to AIDS Confirmation Center of Turkish Public Health Institution, from different provinces of Turkey (Ankara: 64; Adana: 42; Istanbul: 20; Antalya: 13; Gaziantep: 11; Erzurum: 5; Elazig: 3; Malatya: 3; Mersin: 3; and 26 samples from other 21 regions) for routine HIV-1 genotyping test between May 2010-April 2014 period were included in the study. In viral pol gene, complete protease encoding sequence and the first 335 codons of reverse transcriptase (RT) encoding sequence were analyzed by Sanger population-based sequencing method with a commercial test kit (ViroSeq, Abbott/Celera Diagnostics, USA). An alternative in house PCR method with different set of primers was used when the commercial test failed. Primary drug resistance mutations were identified according to the WHO 2009 drug resistance surveillance list. The mean HIV-RNA level at the time of resistance testing was 5.07 (range, 2.09-7.67) log10 copies/ml and the median CD4+ T cell count was 280.3 (range, 0-1000) cells/mm³. The period between the diagnosis of HIV infection and HIV-1 drug resistance test was 18.4 (range, 0-973) weeks. Most prevalent HIV-1 subtypes were subtype B (31%); recombinant B, F1 (24.7%), sub-subtype A1 (16.8%), recombinant B/CRF02_AG (10.5%) and CRF02_G (7.8%). Analysis of our results showed that 10% (19/190) of the samples exhibited resistance mutations. Detected mutations were as follows: M41L, K70E, M184V, L210W and T215C/D/S, responsible for nucleoside RT inhibitor (NRTI) resistance; K103N/S and Y181C, responsible for non-nucleoside RT inhibitor (NNRTI) resistance; M46L and L90M, responsible for protease inhibitor (PI) resistance. NRTI, NNRTI and PI mutation rates in the samples were found as 5.2%, 3.1% and 2.1%, respectively. Both NRTI and NNRTI mutations were detected in one sample. Two mutations leading to NRTI resistance were obtained together in five samples. Seven out of the 19 strains with primary resistance mutation were isolated from samples sent from Ankara, three from Adana, two of each from Istanbul, Erzurum and Mersin, and one of each from Amasya, Samsun and Tokat provinces. There were no statistically significant differences in terms of age, gender, CD4⁺ T cell count, time from diagnosis to resistance testing between the patient group with primary drug resistance and the group without resistance (p> 0.05). However, the mean HIV-RNA level in patients with primary drug resistance [4.77 (2.95-6.87) log(10) copies/ml] was significantly lower than those without primary drug resistance [5.11 (2.09-7.67) log10 copies/ml] (p= 0.043). Our results revealed a relatively high (10%) prevalence of HIV-1 primary drug resistance. We therefore support the need for routine HIV resistance testing so that clinicians can individualize their treatments taking into account the presenting drug resistance.