The Relationship between the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (Draft)

DRAFT
4 clinically normal mothers of children with AIDS, 26 of 72 children and adults with AIDS, and
one (who later developed AIDS) of 22 healthy homosexuals (Gallo et al., 1984). No isolates
of this virus, named HTLV-III, could be found in 115 healthy heterosexual subjects.
Antibodies reactive with HTLV-III antigens were found in serum samples of 88 percent of 48
patients with AIDS, 79 percent of 14 homosexuals with pre-AIDS, and fewer than 1 percent of
hundreds of healthy heterosexuals (Samgadharan et al., 1984).
Shortly thereafter, the researchers found that 100 percent (34 of 34) of AIDS patients
tested were positive for HTLV-III antibodies in a study in which none of 14 controls had
antibodies (Safai et al., 1984). HTLV-III was subsequently isolated from the semen of two
patients with AIDS, a finding consistent with the epidemiologic data demonstrating AIDS
transmission via sexual contact (Zagury et al., 1984). During the same period, HTLV-III was
isolated from the brains of children and adults with AIDS-associated encephalopathy, which
suggested a direct role for the virus in the central nervous system disorders seen in many
patients with AIDS (Shaw et al., 1985).
Researchers in San Francisco subsequently reported the isolation of a retrovirus they
named the AIDS-associated retrovirus (ARV) from AIDS patients in different risk groups, as
well as from asymptomatic people from AIDS risk groups (Levy et al., 1984). The researchers
isolated ARV from 27 of 55 patients with AIDS or lymphadenopathy syndrome; they detected
antibodies to ARV in 90 percent of 113 individuals with the same conditions. Like HTLV-III
and LAV, ARV grew substantially in peripheral blood mononuclear cells and kille CQ T
cells.
By 1985, analyses of the nucleotide sequences of HTLV-III, LAV and ARV
demonstrated that the three were identical (Wain-Hobson et al., 1985; Ratner et al., 1985;
Sanchez-Pescador et al., 1985). In 1986, the Intemational Committee of Viral Taxonomy
renamed the viruses the human immunodeficiency virus (H IV) (Coffin et al., 1986).

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