Prevalence of HIV-1 drug resistance in antiretroviral-naive pregnant thai women

Abstract

HIV-1 drug resistance may limit the use of antiretrovirals when attempting to reduce the vertical transmission rate. Establishing the prevalence of the HIV-1 mutations associated with antiretroviral resistance in pregnant women will enable clinicians to maximize the chances of preventing vertical transmission. In order to determine the prevalence of HIV-1 resistant strains among antiretroviral-naive pregnant Thai women, the nucleotide sequences of the HIV-1 polymerase (pol) gene were evaluated. The plasma samples were collected from the women during the 34th week of pregnancy: numerous secondary mutations could be found in the reverse transcriptase (RT) and protease gene, while no primary mutations in the pol gene were found. The result also showed that by detecting the Δ32bp deletion within the CCR 5 locus, it was evident that none of HIV-1 infected individuals had homozygous or heterozygous Δ32bp deletions of the CCR5 gene; moreover, no CCR5 gene mutations were found in any individual.