AEGiS-1IAC: DETECTION OF RARE HTLV-III-INFECTED CELLS IN PRIMARY TISSUE FROM AIDS PATIENTS BY IN SITU HYBRIDIZATION.

1st International AIDS Conference

Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. - April 14-17, 1985

DETECTION OF RARE HTLV-III-INFECTED CELLS IN PRIMARY TISSUE FROM AIDS PATIENTS BY IN SITU HYBRIDIZATION.

Int Conf AIDS. 1985 Apr 14-17;1:27 Abstract No. S9C

ME Harper, , LM Marselle, RC Gallo and F Wong-Staal
NCI, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland and Biotech Research Labs, Rockville, Maryland.

We have detected HTLV-III RNA in a low percentage of primary Lymphocytes from AIDS and ARC patients using a highly sensitive in situ hybridization method. Following two days exposure, HTLV-III- positive cells exhibiting 20-100 grains/cell were observed at low frequency (generally <0.01% of cells) in preparations from AIDS or ARC lymph nodes, peripheral blood, and bone marrow. Comparable tissue from normal heterosexuals and the uninfected H9 T-cell clone were consistently negative. In contrast,H9 cells Previously infected with HTLV-III were highly labeled (50-200 grains/cell)when hybridized with the HTLV-III probe. Hybridization of a probe control specific for A DNA to AIDS cells or the H9/HTLV-IIIB cell line resulted in no label. This hybridization method, which uses 35S-RNA probes, exhibits high sensitivity and specificity for viral sequences, and has detected viral RNA in a significant percentage of cases so far examined. It is also evident from these and Southern blot experiments that the number of HTLV-III-infected cells in AIDS or ARC primary tissue is very low and that lymph node enlargement in patients with lymphadenopathy is not due to proliferation of HTLV-III-infected lymphocytes.

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S9C