Patent ID: 8168394

Claim:
A method for detecting, in vitro, an infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in a biological sample, comprising simultaneous detection of at least one gag antigen of said HIV and of an antibody directed against said at least one gag antigen of said HIV present in the biological sample, wherein said HIV is at least one HIV-1, and wherein said at least one gag antigen is at least one HIV-1 p25 protein, which method comprises a) bringing the biological sample into contact with a capture antibody directed against said gag antigen of said HIV, and a capture gag antigen derived from said HIV; b) incubating the mixture under conditions allowing formation of antigen-antibody complexes; c) revealing the antigen-antibody complexes formed which uses a labeled detection antibody capable of binding to the gag antigen of said HIV which has been captured and/or also a labeled detection HIV gag antigen capable of binding to the gag antigen antibody which has been captured; wherein the capture gag antigen and/or the labeled detection gag antigen comprises an antigenic gag fragment of said HIV in which at least one epitope has been destroyed; wherein the capture and/or detection antibody recognizes said at least one epitope, which is intact, of the gag antigen which has been captured; and d) the presence of capture antibody/antigen complexes and of antibody/capture antigen complexes indicates an infection with HIV; wherein the capture gag antigen consists of sequence (SEQ ID NO: 22) FRGYVGRFYKTLRAEQAGQGVKNFMTETLLVQNANPDCKTILKALGPAA TLEEMMTAC and/or the labeled detection gag antigen consists of labeled sequence (SEQ ID NO: 22) FRGYVGRFYKTLRAEQAGQGVKNFMTETLLVQNANPDCKTILKALGPAA TLEEMMTAC.