Development of a rapid quantitative assay for HIV‐1 plasma infectious viraemia‐culture‐PCR (CPID)

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Abstract
A simple and rapid assay for the quantification of infectious HIV‐1 in plasma was developed using short‐term culture and DNA PCR. This method, called culture PCR, allows detection and quantification of infectious HIV‐1 viraemia within 48 hours, and measures the number of infectious cell‐free HIV‐1 particles, expressed as culture PCR infectious doses (CPID/ml). 42 HIV infected subjects were assessed by this method. The titres obtained by CPID closely correlated with CD4+ count and clinical status. CPID titres had significant correlation with infectious virus titre determined by conventional limiting dilution tissue‐culture methods. This culture‐PCR technique permits rapid assessment of infectious plasma viraemia, and is comparable to longer culture based assay methods.