Fig 2.

Infectious titer and proviral DNA load of HIV-infected effector cells. The TCID₅₀ of BaL-infected effector cells (i.e., resting PBMC/CD4⁺ T cells, activated PBMC/CD4⁺ T cells, and macrophages) was determined in a 7-day coculture with R5M target cells. Firefly luciferase was used to assess target cell infection, and the TCID₅₀ was calculated using the method of Reed and Muench, expressed as the number of cells needed for 50% infection and plotted on the left y axis (black symbols). The integrated proviral DNA load was determined using a two-step Alu-Gag PCR. Each sample was tested in duplicate. Viral loads were calculated using an external curve for HIV proviral DNA by serially diluting 8E5 T cells and were plotted on the right y axis (red symbols). The threshold of detection was 100 copies/10⁶ cells. The triangles and squares represent two PBMC donors from which the effector cells were generated. Horizontal lines represent the means of the depicted points.