Isolation and Identification of a Novel Virus from Patients with Aids

Abstract

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) has afflicted over 20,000 people worldwide. The disease is characterized by the development of opportunistic infections and uncommon malignancies such as Kaposi's sarcoma and B cell lymphoma. Although a viral etiology of this disease has long been suggested, conventional approaches for isolating infectious viral agents have not been fruitful. Through cocultivation of AIDS patients' peripheral blood cells with mitogen-stimulated normal human lymphocytes or permanent human T cell lines, a number of laboratories have isolated T cell-tropic human retroviruses (HTLV-III/LAV). These retroviruses have been shown to be prevalent among patients with AIDS or AIDS-related complex. Genetic materials isolated from spleen and Kaposi's sarcoma tissues of two AIDS patients were each transfected directly into a continuous mouse cell line (NIH/3T3). The tissues (1–2 g) were minced and treated with collagenase (5 mg/ml) in 1 ml PBS at 37°C for 15 min.