Patent ID: 8080369

Claim:
A method for phenotypically-converting immune cells in an in vitro human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) cell based activation assay, the method comprising steps: (a) providing a cell culture comprising competent immune cells, wherein the competent immune cells comprise a population of peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and wherein the cell culture is maintained at a physiological oxygen level; and (b) administering to the cell culture of step (a) an amount of a wild type human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-TAT protein sufficient to convert a subset of the population of peripheral blood mononuclear cells into a phenotypically converted cell population, wherein the phenotypically converted cell population does not undergo apoptosis, and wherein the phenotypically converted cell population becomes susceptible to a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection when incubated with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in a standard in vitro infection.