1, HIV virus isolation and culture (the method is used for scientific research, generally not for clinical diagnosis) HIV virus only infects CD4+ T lymphocytes, and also requires lymphocytes in a proliferative state, only under specific laboratory conditions to effectively isolate and proliferate HIV virus. And it is required that HIV virus culture should be conducted in biosafety level 3 laboratory.
2, HIV nucleic acid detection (generally used in the acute phase of detection) The most commonly used method is the quantitative HIV-RNA assay, which is used to detect the amount of virus in the plasma of HIV-infected patients, called HIV viral load determination. There are three methods: reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), nucleic acid sequence-dependent amplification technique (NASBA) and branching signal amplification system (bDNA), etc.
3, HIV antigen detection (generally can only be used for clinical detection of early HIV infection) HIV-P24 antigen appears earlier than HIV antibodies, so HIV-P24 antigen detection can be used for the diagnosis of early HIV infection, and the HIV-P24 antigen detection can reduce false negatives when HIV antibody detection is performed at the same time. In addition, the HIV-P24 antigen test can also be used for the determination of HIV concentration in cell culture fluid in vitro and the evaluation of the effect of in vitro drug experiments.
4, HIV infection antibody test (is the most commonly used method to diagnose HIV infection) Serological methods for antibody testing is currently the main test method for diagnosing HIV infection, including primary screening tests and confirmatory tests. The most commonly used method for primary screening tests is the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and confirmatory tests are performed by immunoblotting. Generally, specimens with a positive ELISA primary screening test are further confirmed by immunoblotting before a final diagnosis is made.