Fig. 3.

Role of CD40/CD40L interaction in the MDC1-mediated ‘kick’ of latent HIV-1. MDC1 were cocultured with autologous CD4⁺ T cells and SEB to induce HIV-1 LR, in the presence or absence of CD40L blocking antibody. a) Representative flow cytometry plot of day 15 cultures. Downregulation of CD4 expression (red gate) corresponds with increased expression of p24 in the absence of CD40L blockade. Red histogram peak corresponds with p24 expression of CD4 downregulated population. b, c) Graphical representation of CD4 downregulation (b) and p24 expression (c) of populations described in (A); n = 5. D) Day 7 cell coculture supernatants were analyzed by qRT-PCR for HIV-1 RNA; n = 3. Differences between MDC1/SEB-mediated LR in the absence or presence of CD40L blocking antibody were compared by Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks test. Error bars indicate mean ± SEM. *P<0.05. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)