Patent ID: 7186506

Claim:
A method for assessing the effectiveness of a candidate HIV antiretroviral compound, said method comprising: a) culturing a host cell in the presence of said candidate HIV antiretroviral compound, wherein said host cell comprises a test vector comprising (i) a nucleic acid segment encoding HIV protease having a mutation at codon 88 and (ii) an indicator gene, wherein expression of said indicator gene depends upon the activity of said HIV protease; b) measuring the amount of expression of said indicator gene in said host cell from step (a); and c) comparing the amount of expression of said indicator gene as measured in step (b) with an amount of expression of said indicator gene measured in said host cell of step (a) cultured in the absence of said candidate HIV antiretroviral compound, wherein the difference between the amount of expression of said indicator gene measured in step (c) relative to that measured in step (b) correlates with the effectiveness of said candidate HIV antiretroviral compound, thereby assessing the effectiveness of said candidate HIV antiretroviral compound.