Recently, the researchers at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) have developed a technology for targeted detection of the HIV-genome derived G-Quadruplex (GQ), a four-stranded DNA structure, using a fluorometric test. 

  • It enhances the reliability of HIV diagnosis and significantly reduce false positives in HIV detection.
  • They created the GQ Topology-Targeted Reliable Conformational Polymorphism (GQ-RCP) platform, originally designed for SARS-CoV-2 detection, and successfully adapted it for HIV diagnosis, demonstrating its modular versatility.
  • A key aspect of the study published in Analytical Chemistry was the demonstration of a pH-mediated, single-step transition of dsDNA into the GQ conformation, enabling selective detection.
  • This transition forms the target for detection using a benzobisthiazole-based fluorescent probe (TGS64), paving the way for a reliable diagnostic platform.
  • Benefits
  • This molecular detection platform can be integrated into existing nucleic acid-based diagnostic systems, offering enhanced reliability through sequence-specific recognition.
  • It addresses the challenge of false positives in amplification-based techniques by enabling unambiguous detection of the target GQ (noncanonical nucleic acid conformation).
  • The GQ-RCP-based platform is adaptable for detecting various DNA/RNA-based pathogens, including bacteria and viruses.

Improving HIV-1 Diagnosis

  • The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), the retrovirus causing the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), remains a global health threat.
  • Widely used HIV diagnostics may miss early infections and produce false positives due to cross-reactivity. Other early detection methods suffer from reduced sensitivity and prolonged processing times.
  • Current nucleic acid-based diagnostics are prone to false positives due to general DNA probes that can’t distinguish between nonspecific and target amplicons.
  • Targeting specific nucleic acid sequences, such as unique G-Quadruplex (GQ) structures in pathogenic genomes, offers a significant advancement in developing precise diagnostic analysis.
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