HIV Fitness and Growth Kinetics

HIV fitness and growth kinetics: HIV-1 replicates very quickly in vivo. Infected cells turn-over with a half-life of one or two days. We found that standard models of HIV infection in the laboratory could not account for this rapid infection. Rather, rapid infections depend on cell to cell transmission of virus mechanism rather than going through a cell-free stage. We have shown that viral fitness in vivo can be partly mimicked in tissue culture by changing conditions such that they require rapid turnover of infected cells. We are further investigationg the hypothesis that viral pathothenesis or transmission depends, in part, on the ability of virus to spread more rapidly.