Quantifying Plasma Viral Load in HIV-Infected Mice

Following blood collection from the ARV-treated and untreated control HIV-infected hu-PBMC-NSG mice, the plasma was collected via the centrifugation of mouse blood for 15 min at 7000 rpm. Plasma viral RNA was isolated using a QIAamp Viral RNA Mini Kit (Qiagen, Valencia, CA, USA) per the manufacturer’s instructions. An RNA Quantification Standard ARP-3443 [13 ] was utilized for the determination of the plasma viral load. After isolation, 140 uL of the template was used in q-RT-PCR using a qScript cDNA Synthesis (Quanta Biosciences, Gaithersburg, MD, USA), followed by nested PCR, as previously described [11 (link)].