TABLE 3.

Multiple-analyte comparison of frozen- and dried-plasma specimens from HIV-1-HCV-coinfected samples by HIV-1 viral load, genotypic resistance testing, and HCV genotyping

Sample no.	Amt of dried plasma RNA (log10 copies/ml)	% Similarity score for frozen plasma reference vs. dried plasmaa				HCV genotype from plasmab
		RAMs		Polymorphic fingerprint
		Nucleotides (n = 165)	Amino acids (n = 55)	Nucleotides (n = 924)	Amino acids (n = 308)	Frozen	Dried
1	2.57	99.2	100	99.4	99.8	1a	1a
2	4.01	99.1	99.1	99.4	99.4	2b	2b
3	4.53	100	100	99.9	100	3c	3a
Mean score		99.4	99.7	99.6	99.7

^aHIV-1 viral load (analyte 1) was determined by the Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor test, version 1.5 (standard method). Specimens were air dried and stored ambient for 7 days prior to testing. For genotypic resistance testing (analyte 2), TruGene HIV-1 genotyping kit-derived real-time first-pass sequences were used as the “gold standard” reference sequence for comparison to dried ST specimens. Stringency of scoring includes IUB base codes for mixture detection.

^bHCV genotype results represent analyte 3. Results are from the TruGene HCV 5′NC genotyping kit.

^cSubtype not resolved.