A new approach to the limiting dilution assay

Improved methods of human immunodeficiency virus isolation have sparked an increased interest in determination of the number and proportion of infected cells in plasma samples. The limiting dilution assay is a popular method of determining the proportion of infected cells. We propose a new estimator of the proportion of infected cells based on an underlying Markov chain model for the progression of infected cells to further flasks in the series. This method should improve both design and analyses of these assays.