Figure 5. HMGB1-dependent triggering of HIV replication in DC as a consequence of NK-DC cross talk.

(a) Flow cytometry analysis of p24 intracellular expression in iDCs (CD40⁺), either uninfected (upper panel) or infected with HIV-1_BaL (lower panel) following 3 day-incubation at 10⁶/ml, either alone, or in the presence of rNK or aNK cells (2×10⁵/ml). (b) p24 concentration in culture supernatants of same cultures. Mean±sd of three independent experiments. *p<0.05, non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. (c) Immunofluorescence analysis of intracellular p24 expression in HIV-1-infected iDCs cultured for 3 days either alone or in the presence of aNK cells. Nuclei are stained with DAPI. (d) Flow cytometry intracellular p24 expression in HIV-1-infected DC0 (10⁶/ml) cultured either alone or in the presence of aNK cells for 6 days. (e) HIV-1 proviral DNA levels, determined by light cycler analysis on cells from indicated cultures. One representative experiment out of three conducted with different primary cells preparations is shown. (f) p24 concentration in culture supernatants of mature DCs infected with HIV-1_BaL and cultured for 6 days either alone or in the presence of rNK or aNK cells Mean±sd of three independent experiments. Statistical comparisons were made with the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. * p<0.05, **p = 0.03. (g) p24 concentration in culture supernatants of either iDCs or mature DCs infected with HIV-1_NDK and cultured under the same conditions as in (f). Mean±sd of three independent experiments. Statistical comparisons were made with the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. * p<0.05.