Figure 6. Proposed model depicting the various mechanisms(s) involved in virus transfer from infected T cell to DC.

This includes the following potential mechanisms: Uptake of budding virus particle from the infected T cell via cell membrane uptake; Uptake of various forms of infectious unintegrated viral DNA from infected T cell cytoplasm via cytoplasmic antigen uptake; Membrane transfer of assembling and budding virus from the infected T cell and reorient on DC membrane; and Uptake of cellular and nuclear content including viral antigens and viral nucleic acids from the apoptotic infected T cells. DC is depicted in the middle; Cell with green cytoplasm denotes infected (EGFP+) T cells with various forms of unintegrated proviral DNA (shown in Red). Potential cell surface interacting receptors and ligands are marked in the T cells on the left.