Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Piatak, M.
• Saag, M. S.
• Yang, L. C.
• Clark, S. J.
• Kappes, J. C.
• K.-C. Luk
• Hahn, B. H.
• Shaw, G. M.
• Lifson, J. D.

Titel

High Levels of HIV-1 in Plasma During All Stages of Infection Determined by Competitive PCR

Ist Teil von

• Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 1993-03, Vol.259 (5102), p.1749-1754

Ort / Verlag

Washington, DC: American Society for the Advancement of Science

Erscheinungsjahr

1993

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Quantitative competitive polymerase chain reaction (QC-PCR) methods were used to quantify virion-associated human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) RNA in plasma from 66 patients with Centers for Disease Control stage I to IVC1 infection. HIV-1 RNA, ranging from 100 to nearly 22,000,000 copies per milliliter of plasma (corresponding to 50 to 11,000,000 virions per milliliter), was readily quantified in all subjects, was significantly associated with disease stage and CD4$^+$ T cell counts, and decreased by as much as 235-fold with resolution of primary infection or institution of antiretroviral therapy. Plasma virus levels determined by QC-PCR correlated with, but exceeded by an average of 60,000-fold, virus titers measured by endpoint dilution culture. Quantitation of HIV-1 in plasma by QC-PCR may be useful in assessing the efficacy of antiretroviral agents, especially in early stage disease when conventional viral markers are often negative.