Replication of human immunodeficiency virus in two T-cell lines and their application as antigens for immunofluorescence.

Two T-cell lines, TALL-1 and CCRF-CEM, were infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), strain LAV, to explore the time course of the appearance of various virus specific antigens, and to establish an antibody assay system by indirect immunofluorescence (IF). These cells were infected with LAV at two different input multiplicity of infection (MOI). Antigens were tested by Western blot analysis (WB) and IF. Antigens for WB were extracted from the infected cells at various times after infection, but pooled sera of American HIV carriers could not recognize gp41 or gp160. Antigen expression was highest in CCRF-CEM, but, as the antigen for IF, TALL-1 infected at the MOI of 8.0 was the most suitable 7 days after infection, because it includes a fairly large number of uninfected cells, which served as the internal control.