Anti-HIV Drug Test Systems: Significance and Limitations

Since the discovery of the hum an immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the causative agent of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), significant progress has been made in the developm ent of antiretroviral therapy of HIV-related diseases. It is worth noting that the availability of rapid and sensitive assay systems in the mid-1980’s considerably facilitated the testing of a num ber of potential agents for anti-HIV activity and led to the successful developm ent of several antiretroviral dideoxynucleosides (ddNs) as therapy of HIV infection. In the last several years, a num ber of new assay systems have been established and they appear to further accelerate the speed of discovering new antire­ troviral agents. Several selected in vitro assay systems are listed in Table 9.1. It should be noted that, although a num ber of in vitro assays and animal models are now available, there is as yet no consensus regarding the optimal conditions which allow consistent and clinically applicable results and there is no simple algorithm to translate in vitro data to predict what will happen in hum ans when experim ental antiretroviral drugs are administered.