Genotype Interpretation Algorithms: The Key to Resistance Testing for HIV-1

Biochemistry 218 Antiretroviral drug therapy has been one of the few promising areas in the fight against HIV, contributing to a significant reduction in mortality and morbidity due to HIV in the developed world. However, successful use of antiretroviral drugs is plagued by the phenomenon of drug resistance. A crucial challenge facing antiretroviral therapy is the development of accurate, convenient methods of resistance testing (6). This paper will review the role of resistance testing in the treatment of HIV. The paper will focus on genotype testing, a particularly promising method of resistance testing that uses computational analysis to determine drug susceptibility from sequence information. The role of phenotype information in improving genotype interpretation will be analyzed by comparing predictions made by genotype interpretation systems from three sources, Agence Nationale de Recherches sur le Sida (ANRS), HIV RT and Protease Sequence Database (HIVdb), and Rega Institute (Rega), to phenotypic data.