title: A cytopathic infectivity assay of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 in human primary macrophages.
abstract: In addition to CD4+ T lymphocytes, cells of monocyte/macrophage lineage are a major target for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection. In vitro studies of HIV-1 infection in human monocyte-derived macrophages can be undertaken by a reproducible cell-based assay. A macrophage-based infectivity assay was developed based on the semi-quantitative scoring of HIV-1 induced cytopathology in monolayer macrophage cultures. The assay exhibited dilution-dependent linearity with all three primary macrophage-tropic isolates tested. The end-point infectivity titers determined by this assay correlated with the results obtained by detecting viral p24 antigen in the culture supernatant. The applications of the assay in both neutralization and anti-viral protocols yielded identical results with the more time-consuming and costly p24 formats. Since the assay offers a simple and low-cost method of measuring HIV-1 infectivity in human primary macrophages, it can be used quite easily for large-scale screening or evaluation of candidate vaccines and anti-viral agents.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA.
authors.forename: S C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Spouge
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Merges
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Conley
authors.forename: P L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Nara
mesh_terms: D019380:Anti-HIV Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D003588:Cytopathogenic Effect, Viral; D015488:HIV Antigens / Q000032:analysis; D016655:HIV Core Protein p24 / Q000032:analysis; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008264:Macrophages / Q000166:cytology / Q000821:virology*; D009500:Neutralization Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015215:Zidovudine / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D019380:Anti-HIV Agents; D015488:HIV Antigens; D016655:HIV Core Protein p24; D015215:Zidovudine