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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Jul 29.
Published in final edited form as: Cell Rep. 2020 Jun 23;31(12):107810. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107810

Figure 6. Blood CD4 T Cells from Research Participants with HIV-1 Viremia Show Evidence of Active mTOR Signaling In Vivo.

Figure 6.

(A) Cells from HIV-1+ participants have increased mTOR signaling, compared to cells from healthy controls. PBMCs from viremic HIV-1+ research participants and healthy controls (HC) were surface phenotyped to identify CD4 T cells and analyzed without any ex vivo stimulation for the expression of the canonical phosphorylated target downstream of mTOR, phosphorylated ribosomal protein S6 (p-S6), by multiparameter flow cytometry. Each group had cells from 4 independent donors. Means and SDs of data are shown.

(B) mTOR inhibition decreased p-S6 in cells from HIV-1+ participants. (C) mTOR inhibition decreased p-S6 in cells from both viremic and ART-treated HIV-1+ participants. (B and C) PBMCs from viremic HIV-infected (n = 13) (B) and ART-suppressed HIV-infected (n = 14) (C) study participants were treated with either mTORi or DMSO vehicle for 8 h ex vivo and analyzed for mTOR activity (p-S6) by flow cytometry. A representative histogram is presented for PBMCs obtained from a HIV-infected donor cultured in the absence and presence of mTORi. Data from PBMCs for all of the participants are plotted in (C). The means and SDs of data are shown. Significant differences were determined by 2-tailed Student’s t tests: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ***p < 0.005.