LONG TERMINAL REPEATS REGION AS A POTENTIAL TARGET FOR HIV MOLECULAR DETECTION

Indonesian National Committee for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) has reported the significant increase of HIV infected individual in Indonesia. A sensitive accurate diagnostics are urgently needed to prevent the dissemination of HIV and also to provide a suitable therapy. For this reason, we have developed HIV diagnostic method based on PCR to elucidate this problem. For this research, samples were collected from hospitals and Indonesian Red Cross that consist of samples possesing HIV serological test positive and indeterminate. Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) were isolated from blood plasma. These RNA then were amplified after Reverse transcriptase reaction by using primers which have been designed using env (C2V3C3), Long Terminal Repeats (LTR) (U3) and Capsid gag (p24) as target regions. The obtained results shown 26/34 (76.5%) positive in LTR, 10/33 (36.4%) positive in Env and 11/33 (33.3%) positive in p24. These results showed that LTR primers detect HIV more than other primers. It suggests that LTR could be used as detection target as complement of env and p24 These results need to be explored further by using sequencing method.