Fig. 3. Semen reduces the antiviral efficacy of microbicides to block HIV infection of human PBMCs.

Human PBMCs containing indicated concentrations of the polyanion polystyrene acid (A), the nAb 2F5 (B), the Nucleotide analog reverse-transcriptase inhibitor Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (C), the integrase inhibitor Elvitegravir (D), and the protease inhibitor Indinavir (E) were inoculated with 5 ng mock-exposed or semen-exposed R5-HIV-luciferase, or 50 ng R5-HIV-luciferase as infectivity matched control. Infection rates were determined 3 days post inoculation (A–D) or 4 days post inoculation (E) by quantifying luciferase activities in cellular supernatants. The left panels depict the mean luciferase activities ± standard deviation derived from triplicate infections. RLU/s: relative light units per second. Middle panels show normalized infection rates in which luciferase activities obtained from infected cells in the absence of inhibitor were set at 100%. The right panels depict the calculated IC₅₀ values. The number above the bar represents the fold-change in the IC₅₀. Ns, no statistically significant difference; **** p<0.0001; *** p<0.001 (unpaired t-test).