Figure 5.

Virus Production in PBMCs Was Reduced in Cells Transduced with CAR/CXCR5 Compared to Mock Transduced Cells

PBMCs isolated from rhesus macaques infected with SIV mac 251 were transduced with CAR/CXCR5 or CXCR5 only using the 9-day protocol. Mock samples were treated identically without exposure to the transducing retrovirus. At the conclusion of the transduction and expansion procedure, equal numbers of mock and transduced cells were evaluated for the presence of viral RNA. Cell pellets were analyzed for the presence of gag mRNA relative to the housekeeping gene beta-actin by RT-PCR. Colors denote matched transduced or mock transduced cells from seven individual animals. A Wilcoxon matched pairs signed rank test was used to determine significance of the difference between mock and CAR/CXCR5 samples. The bar represents the median value.