Figure 2.

Efficient mucosal transmission of HIV-1 in CD34T+ mice. (A) Schematic representation of the experiment design. CD34T+ control mice were given i.r. challenges with NL4-3_YU2 HIV-1 on consecutive days and bled at the indicated time points for viral load measurements. (B) Plasma HIV-1 RNA levels in the blood of CD34T+ mice after intra-rectal challenge with NL4-3_YU2 HIV-1. The dotted line represents the quantification limit of 384 HIV-1 RNA copies/mL of the assay. (C) Comparison of infectivity rates (in %) of CD34 and CD34T+ mice post i.r. HIV-1 challenge. (D) Plasma HIV-1 RNA levels at week 3 after i.r. challenge with HIV-1 of CD34 and CD34T+ mice. (E) RNA-scope-based detection of HIV-1 infected cells in the ileum, colon and spleen of CD34T+ mice harvested at day 21 post i.r. HIV-1 challenge. HIV-1 RNA (pink), CD4+ cells (white), CD3+ cells (green) were labeled by in-situ hybridization and IF and nuclei were stained with DAPI. Scale bar is 50 μm. 3 mice per group and 3 tissue sections per mouse were analyzed. Representative images were selected for display. i.r. intra-rectal.