DeepChek® Assay TK / POL Drug Resistance

The DeepChek® Assay TK/POL Drug Resistance is a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test (nucleic acid technique (NAT)) intended to screen the herpes simplex virus (HSV) mutations and HSV genotype.

The test is amplifying relevant regions of the HSV genome including regions which harbor mutations described as sufficient, when present, to determine level of resistance to anti-retroviral drugs.

The DeepChek® Assay TK/POL Drug Resistance is a polymerase chain reaction test which includes primers, reverse and forward, designed to amplify HSV DNA from extracted specimens. The various sets are available in two (2) distinct wells.

During each round of thermal cycling, amplification products dissociate to single strands at high temperature allowing primer annealing and extension as the temperature is lowered. Exponential amplification of the product is achieved through repeated cycling between high and low temperatures, resulting in a billion-fold or greater amplification of target sequences. Amplification of the targets takes in the thermal cycling program in two (2) distinct wells and distinct PCR program.

The DeepChek® Assay TK/POL Drug Resistance is performed on a PCR instrument.

Subsequently, the amplicons can be used for next generation sequencing and analyzed with a downstream analysis software to list HSV genome mutations according to available public reference knowledge databases. Genotypic analysis of various regions of HSV facilitates the study of the relationship between mutations and viral resistance to anti-retroviral drugs, specifically in the UL23 (thymidine kinase, TK) and UL30 (DNA polymerase).

The kit is compatible with NGS workflow.