Synthetic peptides in the diagnosis of HIV infection

Peptide-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays have been found to be enough sensitive and specific for the diagnosis of human immunodeficiency virus specific Abs in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome patients. An overview on the most important peptides developed to be used as synthetic antigens in immunodiagnosis of HIV-infected patients is here reported. In particular, many studies have been devoted to discriminate between the two retroviruses HIV-1 and HIV-2, as well as different subtypes.