Figure 2.

HIV-1 TAT alters mitochondrial membrane potential and initiates mitophagy in mPMs. (a–c) HIV-1 TAT time-dependently upregulated the expression of autophagy markers such as BECN1 (a), MAP1LC3B-II (b), and SQSTM1 (c) in mPMs. (d and e) HIV-1 TAT decreases mitochondrial membrane potential in mPMs. (d) Exposure with HIV-1 TAT (50 ng/mL; 24 h) resulted in a reduction of the JC-1 dye aggregation in the mitochondria and decreased ratio of the aggregate (red) to monomer JC-1 (green) in mPMs. Scale bar: 100 µm. (e) Quantification of JC-1 staining in mPMs exposed to HIV-1 TAT (50 ng/mL) for 24 h. The data are presented as mean ± SEM from 6 independent experiments. Nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis One-way ANOVA followed by the Dunn post hoc test was used to determine the statistical significance between multiple groups and Wilcoxon test was used to compare between 2 groups. *, P < 0.05 vs. control.