Fig. 6.

Rituximab treatment eliminates infected CD20^dim CD4⁺ T cells and reduces HIV-1 infection in vitro. a, b Isolated PBMCs from uninfected donors (green) and ART-suppressed HIV⁺ patients (orange) were treated with Rituximab (RTX) or antibody control for 48 h. Cell death was assessed by flow cytometry using the gating strategy shown in Fig. 1a. Panels represent percentages of B cells (a) or CD20^dim in CD4⁺ T cells (b) for n = 3 uninfected donors and n = 3 ART-suppressed patients (#56–58). Median values and min–max ranks are represented. c Isolated CD4⁺ T cells incubated with Rituximab or antibody control were used as a target in combination with isolated autologous NK cells. The percentage of ADCC was measured by the reduction of eFluor670 staining by flow cytometry using the gating strategy shown in Fig. S6. Summary results for six uninfected donors are represented. d PBMCs from n = 3 uninfected donors were infected with the HIV strain NL4.3 and treated with Rituximab for different periods of time. Percentages of infected cells (p24⁺) in CD20^dim CD3⁺ T cells with (dark blue) or without (light blue) Rituximab are represented in the left panel (mean ± SEM). The percentage of dead infected cells induced by Rituximab is shown in the right panel, which represents the difference in the proportion of infected cells between Rituximab-treated cells versus Rituximab non-treated cells (mean ± SD). Flow gating strategy used for this analysis is shown in Fig. 5a. All comparisons were performed using the Wilcoxon test. Data underlying this Figure are provided as Source Data file