Figure 3. No evidence for direct viral-mediated suppression of moDC function.

(A) MoDC from a single donor were exposed to laboratory strains of HIV (HIV-1_MN (X4-tropic) and HIV-1_ADA (R5-tropic)(100pg/ml) in 10% control donor plasma prior to stimulation with Poly I:C. (B) MoDC from a single donor were exposed to patient-derived strains of HIV (100pg/ml) from 4 untreated donors in 10% control donor plasma prior to stimulation. Data displayed in A and B are representative of experiments performed on 3–4 separate moDC donors. (C) HIV was removed from the plasma of 4 untreated HIV-infected donors via ultracentrifugation, and moDC from a single donor (left) were exposed to whole plasma versus the virus-free supernatant fraction from each plasma donor prior to stimulation (only stimulated conditions are shown). The asterisks indicate p values: *p < .05. This was repeated on 3 separate moDC donors and pooled data are displayed as fold change (FC) of IL-12p70 secretion of supernatant compared with whole plasma (right). (D) Correlation of IL-12p70 secretion from HIV plasma-exposed DC following Poly I:C stimulation (values displayed in Figure 1b) with viral load and CD4+ T cell count was evaluated via linear regression.