Fig 8. Upon HCMV-GFP infection, GFP⁺ cells are more abundant in monocyte-derived cells than in pDC.

(A, B) pDC, moDC, GM-CSF MΦ, and M-CSF MΦ were infected with three independently produced HCMV-GFP preparations (#1, #2, and #3) at MOI 3 for 24 h and percentages of HCMV-GFP⁺ cells were analyzed by flow cytometry. (C) pDC, moDC, GM-CSF MΦ, and M-CSF MΦ were infected with HCMV-GFP and percentages of GFP⁺ cells as well as cGAMP synthesis were determined by FACS analysis and a HPLC-MS/MS method, respectively. Percentages of GFP⁺ cells (x-axis) were blotted against the amount of cGAMP synthesized (y-axis) from the same cultures for all different cell subsets in one blot and the Spearman correlation (r_S) between the factors was determined. (D) pDC and M-CSF MΦ were infected with HCMV-GFP at varying MOI between 0.1 to 30 and percentages of GFP⁺ cells (x-axis) were blotted against percentages of IFN-α⁺ cells or IFN-α contents of cell-free supernatants of the same cultures (y-axis). Median of 8–30 (B) or values from 3–7 (C) and 14–42 (D) different donors. **: p ≤ 0.0013, ***: p ≤ 0.00031 one-tailed paired Wilcoxon signed rank test was used for statistical analyses between monocyte-derived cell subsets, because the subsets were derived from monocytes of the same donors. In contrast, pDC were derived from different donors. Therefore, statistical analysis between pDC and one of the monocyte-derived cell subsets was performed using one-tailed unpaired Mann-Whitney test.