[Isolation of human immunodeficiency virus from Hungarian AIDS and ARC patients]

Human immunodeficiency virus infected persons are usually identified by indirect methods, detecting viral-specific antibodies. Helping the early diagnosis of HIV infection there is a need to detect virus or viral specific antigens directly. Virus isolation have been attempted from separated lymphocytes of HIV infected five homosexual male patients and one transfusion recipient. Three patients had AIDS, three belonged to the ARC group at the time of the examination. In 3 out of 6 lymphocyte cultures cocultivated with normal donor lymphocytes, virus antigens and virus replications had been detected within ten days of culture. The amount of HIV antigen p24 ranged between 0.5----2.0 ng/ml during the first two weeks of cocultivation. Permanent human lymphoid and monocyte/macrophage cell lines have been infected by the viruses isolated from the primer lymphocyte cocultures. Productive infection could be initiated in Jurkat tat-III and U937 cells, while infection of Jurkat and HUT 78 cell lines was transient. Results indicate, that HIVs could be isolated from infected Hungarian patients with various stages of AIDS and one isolate--termed HIV-1FB918--actively replicates in human permanent cell lines.