Quantitative detection of HIV-1 drug resistance mutations by automated DNA sequencing.

A comparison has been made between manual and automated DNA sequencing procedures to evaluate the ability to distinguish mixtures of wild-type and mutant sequences. Quantitative detection of such mixtures of HIV-1 drug resistance mutations was best achieved using an automated system that uses fluorescent-labelled sequencing primers. This procedure has a wide range of applications in clinical research, including heterozygote analysis. Software that automatically reports mixed-base positions is presented.