3rd Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections Washington, DC - January 28-February 1, 1996

Conf Retroviruses Opportunistic Infect 1996 Jan 28-Feb 1; 3rd:145 (abstract no. 498)

Al-Mulla W, Gill MJ, Beckthold B, Church D
Kuwait University, Kuwait.

The appearance of syncytium inducing (SI) phenotype maybe an indication of the progression of an aggressive HIV infection that is usually accompanied with a decline in the CD4 positive cell number. Reversion of the SI phenotype to the non-syncytium inducing (NSI) phenotype appears to be an unusual phenomenon and has been reported in 3 out of 10 HIV-1 positive patients undergoing didanosine treatment. This reversion of phenotype from SI to NSI was only transient and was not observed in patients receiving zidovudine or no antiretroviral therapy.

We have prospectively studied the viral phenotype of 52 patients over a period of two years. The patients PBL were cocultured with HIV-negative donor PBL for a period of two weeks and the SI was determined by assaying the supernatants onto MT-4 lymphoblastoid cells. Out of 52 positive patients 14 had SI phenotype isolated from peripheral blood lymphocytes. We observed a reversion of the SI phenotype to NSI variant in 6 out of 14 patients. This reversion was noted in one patient receiving didanosine (DDI) therapy, four patients undergoing zidovudine (AZT) treatment and one with D4T treatment. The reversion of the SI phenotype was noted to be transient in two patients, i.e., the SI phenotype had reappeared in these patients. In the other four patients, two are still showing NSI phenotype in their circulation after 4 months of their first appearance,one patient had no virus recovered after the appearance of the NSI by four months, and one patient outcome is still not determined. All the CD4 positive cell counts in all these patients was less than 100/mm³. There was no significant difference in the CD4 positive cell count between these patients and others who showed no fluctuation in the SI phenotype.

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