Figure 7.

RecHTLV expression reduces HTLV-1 infection of Jurkat T cells

(A) Schematic representation of the experimental work: chronically HTLV-1-infected C91-PL donor cells were co-cultured for 5 days with CMAC-Blue pre-stained Jurkat acceptor T cells, which constitutively express the RecHTLV recombinase or Cre as a control. Infected Jurkat T cells were detected by intracellular FACS staining of Tax protein. (B) Representative dot plots obtained by flow cytometry showing the gating strategy for co-culture of Jurkat acceptor cells (CMAC+) and C91-PL donor cells (CMAC–). The two populations are discriminated based on the CMAC staining and Tax expression is further detected in the distinct cell populations. (C) Quantification of the frequency of Tax+ cell in Jurkat (CMAC+) acceptor cells. Left: integrase inhibitor Raltegravir compared with the solvent control DMSO; Right: Jurkat cells expressing either Cre or RecHTLV. For statistical analysis, the fraction of C91-PL Tax+ cells in the co-culture was considered. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals (n = 8; ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗∗∗p < 0.001; linear mixed model followed by a t test). Parts of the figure were created with BioRender.com.