CONCISE COMMUNICATION Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 RNA in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells of Patients Receiving Prolonged Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy

The levels of early spliced mRNA and genomic RNA of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of 14 patients who were receiving highly active combination antiretroviral therapy for 116 weeks were determined. The level of viral genomic RNA was below the level of detection in the plasma of these patients (!50 copies/mL), but cell-associated viral tat, rev, and nef mRNA were detected in 86 % (12 of 14) of the patients. Cell-associated viral genomic RNA was detected in 57 % (8 of 14) of the patients. Early viral spliced mRNA was detected in the PBMC of all patients who had positive results of testing for HIV-1 genomic RNA, and the level of viral genomic RNA in these patients was 34–2214 copies per 106 cells. Combination therapy involving drugs that inhibit human im-munodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1 reverse transcriptase (RT) and protease decreases the virus load in patients ’ plasma and increases the survival of patients with AIDS [1–3]. Although viral RNA levels in plasma are suppressed below the limit of detection (!50 copies/mL) for a prolonged period of time, replication-competen