A sensitive assay for anti-HIV-1 drug discovery in a biological safety level-2 laboratory.

Studies involving infectious, wild type HIV-1 must be performed under strict BSL-3 practice. We have employed a defective (deltaTat/Rev)MC99 and cloned 1A2 line, ie, mutated HIV-1 and Tat/Rev transfected cells to verify anti-HIV-1 activity in a BSL-2 laboratory. A number of extracts from various parts of 11 species of plants were studied. Results were correlated with those of an anti-HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) assay.