Enzymatic Assay for Rapid Measurement of Antiretroviral Drug Levels

Poor adherence to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and antiretroviral therapy (ART) can lead to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) acquisition and emergence of drug resistant infections, respectively. Measurement of antiviral drug levels provides objective adherence information that may help prevent adverse health outcomes. Gold standard drug-level measurement by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry is centralized, heavily instrumented, and expensive and is thus unsuitable and unavailable for routine use in clinical settings. We developed the REverse TranscrIptase Chain Termination (RESTRICT) assay as a rapid and accessible measurement of drug levels indicative of long-term adherence to PrEP and ART. The assay uses designer single stranded DNA templates and intercalating fluorescent dyes to measure complementary DNA (cDNA) formation by reverse transcriptase in the presence of nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor drugs. We optimized the RESTRICT assay using aqueous solutions of tenofovir diphosphate (TFV-DP), a metabolite that indicates long-term adherence to ART and PrEP, at concentrations over two orders of magnitude above and below the clinically relevant range. We used dilution in water as a simple sample preparation strategy to detect TFV-DP spiked into whole blood and accurately distinguished TFV-DP drug levels corresponding to low and high PrEP adherence. The RESTRICT assay is a fast and accessible test that could be useful test for patients and clinicians to measure and improve ART and PrEP adherence.