The genome of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) encodes at least six proteins involved in regulation as well as the structural proteins Gag, Pol, and Env. The interplay of the various regulators generates early and late transcriptional phases in the HIV-1 life cycle; the earliest RNA is enriched in subgenomic species, and the genomic transcript appears at the later stage of infection. We investigated the nature of the mRNAs expressed in the early stages of infection when the 2 kilobase subgenomic species predominate. RNA was analyzed in the early phase of a one-step growth cycle of HIV-1 infection in T-lymphoid and monocytic cell lines by using PCR amplification of in vitro-synthesized viral cDNAs. In both cell lines, expression of Tat-, Rev-, and Nef-specific messages appeared simultaneously and could be detected within 8-12 hr of infection but in different amounts with a predominance of Nef-specific message. The Env-specific message could be detected as early as the Rev-specific message, indicating that expression of at least small amounts of the singly spliced message could occur before the accumulation of Rev.