Figure 4.

(A) The role of adherent cells in acute HIV-1 infection. To determine whether the adherent cells present in PBMCs could facilitate the infection of CD4⁺ cells, different groups of cells were prepared and incubated with HIV-1 as described in the protocol schematic: (1) unfractionated CD4⁺ T cells (lanes 1 and 1′); (2) quiescent CD25⁻ CD4⁺ T cells (lanes 2 and 2′); (3) CD25⁻ adherent cells plus quiescent CD25⁻ CD4⁺ T cells (lanes 3 and 3′); (4) CD25⁻ adherent cells (lanes 4 and 4′); (5) unfractionated adherent cells (lanes 5 and 5′). Cells from each group were subjected to intact-cell PCR and lanes 1–6 show HIV-1 early transcripts (RU5) and lanes 1′–6′ show HIV-1 full-length DNA. The protocol schematic was as follows: