Quantitation of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 in the blood of infected persons.

We used end-point-dilution cultures to measure the level of infectious human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in peripheral-blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and plasma of 54 infected patients who were not receiving antiviral chemotherapy. HIV-1 was recovered from the plasma and PBMC of every seropositive patient, but from none of 22 seronegative control subjects. The mean titers in plasma were 30, 3500, and 3200 tissue-culture-infective doses (TCID) per milliliter for patients with asymptomatic infection, the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and the AIDS-related complex, respectively. In PBMC, the mean titers were significantly higher for symptomatic patients (AIDS, 2200, and AIDS-related complex, 2700 TCID per 10(6) PBMC) than asymptomatic patients (20 TCID per 10(6) PBMC). The values for the symptomatic patients were considered to indicate that at least 1 in 400 circulating mononuclear cells harbored HIV-1. The HIV-1 titers of seven patients with AIDS or AIDS-related complex treated with zidovudine for four weeks decreased significantly in plasma but not in PBMC. In addition, the mean titer in the plasma of 20 patients receiving long-term zidovudine treatment (130 TCID per milliliter) was 25-fold lower than the mean for comparable untreated patients with AIDS or AIDS-related complex. We conclude that the levels of HIV-1 in plasma and PBMC are much higher than previous estimates. This high degree of HIV-1 viremia raises the possibility that the direct cytopathic effect of this retrovirus alone may be sufficient to explain much of the pathogenesis of AIDS.

[1]  C. Griscelli,et al.  Selective tropism of lymphadenopathy associated virus (LAV) for helper-inducer T lymphocytes. , 1984, Science.

[2]  E. McCray Occupational risk of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome among health care workers. , 1986, The New England journal of medicine.

[3]  R. Schooley,et al.  ISOLATION OF HTLV-III/LAV FROM CERVICAL SECRETIONS OF WOMEN AT RISK FOR AIDS , 1986, The Lancet.

[4]  James R. Allen,et al.  Risk of AIDS for recipients of blood components from donors who subsequently developed AIDS , 1987 .

[5]  K. Mcgeeney,et al.  Letter: Urate-oxidase treatment for hyperuricaemia. , 1975, Lancet.

[6]  A. Fauci Current issues in developing a strategy for dealing with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. , 1986, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[7]  R. Gallo,et al.  Detection of lymphocytes expressing human T-lymphotropic virus type III in lymph nodes and peripheral blood from infected individuals by in situ hybridization. , 1986, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[8]  R. Schooley,et al.  Isolation of HTLV-III from cerebrospinal fluid and neural tissues of patients with neurologic syndromes related to the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. , 1985, The New England journal of medicine.

[9]  A. Sönnerborg,et al.  Efficient isolation of HIV from plasma during different stages of HIV infection , 1988, Journal of medical virology.

[10]  D. Ho,et al.  Pathogenesis of infection with human immunodeficiency virus. , 1987, The New England journal of medicine.

[11]  P. Duesberg Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome: correlation but not causation. , 1989, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[12]  B. Safai,et al.  HTLV-III in cells cultured from semen of two patients with AIDS. , 1984, Science.

[13]  J. Chermann,et al.  Isolation of a T-lymphotropic retrovirus from a patient at risk for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). , 1983, Science.

[14]  M. Hirsch,et al.  Infection of monocyte/macrophages by human T lymphotropic virus type III. , 1986, The Journal of clinical investigation.

[15]  R. Gallo,et al.  Detection, isolation, and continuous production of cytopathic retroviruses (HTLV-III) from patients with AIDS and pre-AIDS. , 1984, Science.

[16]  R. Schooley,et al.  HTLV-III in the semen and blood of a healthy homosexual man. , 1984, Science.

[17]  D. Markovitz,et al.  The role of mononuclear phagocytes in HTLV-III/LAV infection. , 1986, Science.

[18]  S. Salahuddin,et al.  Isolation of infectious human T-cell leukemia/lymphotropic virus type III (HTLV-III) from patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) or AIDS-related complex (ARC) and from healthy carriers: a study of risk groups and tissue sources. , 1985, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.