title: In vitro replication kinetics of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) variants in relation to virus load in long-term survivors of HIV-1 infection.
abstract: In 7 long-term survivors (LTS) and 8 progressors, all carrying solely non-syncytium-inducing variants, a possible correlation between in vitro virus replicative capacity, virus load, and clinical course of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection was analyzed. Late in infection, 3 LTS and 7 progressors had a high virus load, which coincided with the presence of rapid-replicating viruses. In contrast to progressors, LTS maintained relatively high and stable CD4 T cell counts. Four LTS persistently had relatively slow-replicating viruses and a low virus load, even after 6.6-9 years of seropositive follow-up. All virus isolates from 1 of these LTS had a 4-aa deletion in nef. These results suggest a correlation between the in vitro replicative capacity of non-syncytium-inducing HIV-1 variants and virus load. The presence of HIV-1 variants with relatively low replicative capacity throughout infection may have contributed to the beneficial clinical course in half of the LTS in this study.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Viro-Immunology, Central Laboratory of The Netherlands Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service, University of Amsterdam.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Blaak
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brouwer
authors.forename: L J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Ran
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: de Wolf
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schuitemaker
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000821:virology; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D003588:Cytopathogenic Effect, Viral; D018450:Disease Progression; D015754:Genes, nef; D014644:Genetic Variation; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000821:virology*; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009426:Netherlands; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D017741:Survivors; D019562:Viral Load; D014776:Virus Cultivation; D014779:Virus Replication