Effective use of frozen donor peripheral blood mononuclear cells for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 isolation from vertically infected pediatric patients.

In this study, we examined variables related to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) isolation utilizing samples from 51 HIV-infected (153 plasma and 122 peripheral blood mononuclear cell [PBMC] samples) and 57 uninfected (182 plasma and 163 PBMC samples) infants. Our chief observation was that cryopreservation of donor PBMCs does not significantly alter their sensitivity or specificity for isolation of HIV from patient PBMCs or plasma.