Figure 2.
Assay for antiretroviral activity of triterpene derivatives. HIV-1 vector was cotransfected with a HIV-1 envelope expression plasmid into 293T cells in a 96-well tissue culture plate. Forty-eight hours post-trasfection, cell culture supernatants were harvested from the virus-producing cells and used to infect permissive target cells (i.e., U373-MAGI-CXCR4cem cells). Infected cells were harvested 48 hours postinfection and analyzed by flow cytometry. To test triterpene derivatives for antiretroviral activity, virus-producing cells (prior to harvesting virus) or permissive target cells after virus infection were exposed individually with each derivative at a range of concentrations (i.e., 5 nM to 50 μM).