Incidence of lamivudine resistance associated mutations in pol-gene of HIV-1 in patients from north India: a preliminary report.

Screening of drug-resistant variants is very important for the effective clinical management of HIV-infected patients and development of new strategies. The present study was aimed to detect codon-184 mutations in the pol-gene of HIV leading to resistance to lamivudine (3-TC) by nested cum ARMS-PCR approach in 10 treated and 9 treatment naive patients. For correlation the whole blood CD4/CD8 cell counts and the soluble TNFRII levels in plasma were also determined. Of the 19 patients tested, mutant variants were observed in 2 patients (Met Val in one and Met Val & lle in second) both being treated with 3-TC. No mutations were detected in the treatment-naive patients. The results confirmed that, drug resistant variants of codon-184 emerge rapidly in patients receiving 3-TC containing regimens including our population, which is mainly infected with subtypeC of the virus that could be detected along with wild viral population using sensitive approaches such as ARMS-PCR.