Measuring human immunodeficiency virus type 1 RNA loads in dried blood spot specimens using NucliSENS EasyQ HIV-1 v2.0

Higher Specificity of Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Amplification Isothermal Technology than of Real-Time PCR for Quantification of HIV-1 RNA on Dried Blood Spots

“…The linear dynamic range of this assay spans 25 (1.4 log 10 ) to 3,000,000 (6.4 log 10 ) HIV-1 RNA copies/ml when 1 ml of plasma is used. The lower limit of quantification is 800 copies/ml when 2 spots of 50 l of whole blood are used (13). The limit of detection is 100 copies/ml, and qualitative results are obtained below 800 copies/ml (negative, Ͻ100 copies/ml; positive, between 100 and 800 copies/ml).…”

“…Recent evaluation of NucliSENS EasyQ HIV-1 V2.0 (based on NASBA technology) on DBS and plasma samples under different storage conditions (temperature, humidity, and duration) showed that DBS samples yielded 100% specificity, linear results over a wide range of viral loads, and a detection limit of 800 copies/ml (13). This complies with recent WHO guidelines defining virological failure as a plasma HIV-1 RNA level of Ͼ1,000 copies/ml (14).…”

Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Amplification in Diagnosis of Disease Pathogens

“…Organon Teknika, a company from Netherland, released NucliSens HIV-1 QT assay derived from NASBA in 1998 [6] . After that, the company and BioMiSens launched a series of products including NucliSens Extractor kit [9] or NucliSens easyMAG [14]and [19] to extract nucleic acids, NucliSens Basic Kit for amplification [26]and [31] , NucliSens EasyQ assay for molecular beacon analysis [11] , and NucliSens miniMAG assay for electro chemiluminescent analysis [10] . The most widely used NASBA kit at present is NucliSens EasyQ assay which could detect Listeria, vibrio cholera, salmonella and so on [11] .…”

“…NucliSens EasyQ HIV-1 combined NucliSens HIV-1 QT with the molecular beacon assay, NucliSens EasyQ analyzer, for real-time detection of targets [21] . Nowadays, it's the main clinic method that extracting nucleic acid from dried blood spots (DBS) with NucliSENS EasyMAG and qualifying, quantifying with NucliSENS EasyQ HIV-1 V2.0 [14] and [19] . LTR-based NASBA was modified based on NucliSens HIV-1 QT with only one internal standard, to diagnose M, N, O groups of HIV-1 specially [19] .…”

“…Nowadays, it's the main clinic method that extracting nucleic acid from dried blood spots (DBS) with NucliSENS EasyMAG and qualifying, quantifying with NucliSENS EasyQ HIV-1 V2.0 [14] and [19] . LTR-based NASBA was modified based on NucliSens HIV-1 QT with only one internal standard, to diagnose M, N, O groups of HIV-1 specially [19] . Ultra-NucliSens suits low concentration of pathogen samples with ultrahigh sensitivity [22] .…”