Fig 4. PKC agonists and compounds releasing active P-TEFb induce HIV-1 recovery in CD8⁺-depleted PBMCs from cART-treated HIV⁺ aviremic patients.

Ex vivo cultures of CD8⁺-depleted PBMCs purified from blood of 24 patients were mock-treated or treated with anti-CD3+anti-CD28 antibodies, prostratin (0.5μM), bryostatin-1 (5nM), JQ1 (0.25μM), I-BET (0.25μM), I-BET151 (0.25μM) or HMBA (5mM) alone or in combination as indicated. Six days post-treatment, concentrations of genomic viral RNA in culture supernatants were determined and the values were expressed as HIV-1 RNA copies/ml. Total HIV-1 DNA was expressed as HIV-1 DNA copies/10⁶ CD8⁺-depleted PBMCs. Values representing higher viral production after the combined treatment than after the single drug treatments are shown in grey. Values representing reactivation of the virus observed exclusively after combined treatments are shown in black. ‘I’ indicates below the 150 HIV-1 RNA copies/ml limit of detection. ‘//’ indicates not tested conditions.