Human cell lines (the T-cell lines H9, Jurkat, and HUT102, the myeloid lines U937 and HL60, and the Raji B cell line) were infected with HIV-1. HIV-1 antigen could be detected by immunofluorescence analysis in more than 50% of T cells and myeloid cells 15 days after infection. Infection of Raji cells took more than 2-3 months. Studies of cell surface marker expression revealed remarkable changes after HIV-1 infection of Raji cells: expression of CR2 (C3d/EBV receptor, CD19, CD20, CD22, CD23, CD10, and surface IgM) were highly reduced, in the case of CR2 and membrane-IgM from 100 to 0%, whereas levels of CD37 and CD38 remained unaltered by HIV-1 infection. U937 cells showed a reduction of CD4 expression from 14 to 5% after HIV-1 infection; the CR3 expression slightly increased from 25 to 30%. In contrast, HLA-DR was only expressed (21%) after HIV-1 infection but not in uninfected U937 cells. Expression of HLA-DR could be detected also in HL60 cells (33%) after HIV-1 infection. In H9 cells, CD4 was reduced from 60 to 30% after HIV-1 infection, whereas HLA-DR and CD25/IL-2 receptor expression increased from 16 to 90% and from 0 to 50%, respectively. CD4 was reduced from 70 to 0% from Jurkat cells after HIV-1 infection, whereas expression of CR2 was only slightly diminished from 8 to 4%. Expression of CR1 and HLA-DR was slightly increased in these cells (1 to 3%).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)