Interlaboratory quality control of total HIV-1 DNA load measurement for multicenter reservoir studies

Abstract

Background: Viral reservoirs represent an important barrier to HIV cure. Accurate markers of HIV reservoirs are needed to develop multicenter studies. The aim of this multicenter quality control (QC) was to evaluate the inter-laboratory reproducibility of total HIV-1-DNA quantification.

Methods: Ten laboratories of the ANRS-AC11 working group participated by quantifying HIV-DNA with a real-time qPCR assay (Biocentric) in four samples (QCMD).

Results: Good reproducibility was found between laboratories (standard deviation ≤ 0.2 log₁₀ copies/10⁶ PBMC) for the three positive QC that were correctly classified by each laboratory (QC1<QC2<QC3).

Conclusions: Results of this QC validate the feasibility of multicenter studies using this standardized assay.

Keywords: HIV-1 DNA; interlaboratory quality control; quantification.