The human immunodeficiency virus and associated detection methods

Abstract

isolates-lymphadenopathyassociated Virus or LAV;i Human Tlymphotropic Virus type III, or HTLV 1112 and AIDS-associated Retrovirus, or ARV.3 As the names of these isolates suggest, HIV is a retrovirus-that is, an RNA virus with the ability to transcribe its genome into a DNA copy, which may be integrated into the genome of the infected host. Although it is now clear that HIV may infect a number of different cell types, its receptor is a component of the CD4 molecule and consequently, it shows a strong tropism for the CD4 (helper-inducer) subset of Tlymphocytes.+5,6 HIV was originally considered to be closely related to the oncogenic retroviruses HTLVl and HTLV2, but it is now clear that it is a non-oncogenic retrovirus, more closely related to the visna-maedi lentiviruses of animals. HIV infection is primarily productive and lytic, at least in cell cultures, and in viva, viral destruction of T-helper lymphocytes is thought to be a major