Syncytia--a major site for the production of the human immunodeficiency virus?

An HIV-1 isolate (designated GB8) was isolated from an asymptomatic AIDS patient and subsequently grown in the T-lymphocyte cell line JM. Electron microscopy showed that it is vesicles within the syncytia present in cultures of JM cells chronically infected with GB8, rather than the surface membranes of unfused cells, which are the major sites for the assembly, production and release of HIV.