FIG. 6.

Effect of exogenous IL-2 on viral replication in NL4-3- or ΔnefNL4-3-infected human tonsillar tissue ex vivo. (a and b) Virus production as evaluated by the concentration of p24 in the medium at various times postinfection. Data on the culture media of 12 blocks of tissue from one donor are pooled for each time point and for every condition and are representative of experiments with tissue from three donors. Panel b is an enlarged detail of the dashed rectangle in panel a, to demonstrate the effect of IL-2 on NL4-3 at low level of viral replication. (c) Average concentration of p24 in the culture media of IL-2-stimulated tissues infected with parental NL4-3 or ΔnefNL4-3 relative to the NL4-3-infected unstimulated control. Each column represents the mean and standard error of the mean of experiments with tissue from 5 to 11 donors.