FIG. 7.
Intracellular HIV degradation and time course viral transmission mediated by DCs. (A) HIV degradation in DCs. DCs (7.5 × 105) were incubated with AT-2-inactivated R5-tropic HIV (50 ng of p24), washed, and treated with trypsin. Aliquots of DCs were cultured, and DC-associated HIV p24 was measured daily. The p24 result (3,897 pg/ml) for mDCs at day 0 was set at 100%, and relative results are shown. (B) Time course HIV transmission by DCs. Transmission of HIV-Luc/JRFL (multiplicity of infection, 0.2) with iDCs and mDCs as donors and Hut/CCR5 cells as targets was performed as described in the legend to Fig. 1B. At 0, 1, 2, 4, and 6 dpi, aliquots of HIV-pulsed iDCs and mDCs were cocultured separately with Hut/CCR5 cells for an additional 3 days. In parallel, HIV infection of DC-alone controls was determined by measuring the luciferase activity at 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 dpi. Mock controls of iDCs and mDCs without HIV infection were identical. All data are the means ± standard deviations of triplicate samples. One representative experiment out of three is shown. cps, counts per second.