FIG 5.

Nef antagonizes SERINC5-mediated induction of proinflammatory cytokine production in MDMs. (A) Schematic of experimental flow (analogous to Fig. 2B, but with the addition of HIV-1 WT ± S5). (B and C) Cytokine expression by MDMs from donors 35, 36, and 37 as a heat map. (B) The color gradient covers up to >10-fold change of expression over noninfected (NI; set to 1). (C) Data are displayed as log₂ fold change for MDMs infected with HIV-1 ΔNef+S5 particles relative to the ΔNef control, with red, black, and blue indicating, respectively, upregulated, unaltered, or reduced cytokine production. (D) Quantification of intracellular p24 levels in infected MDM cultures relative to WT-infected cultures (set to 100%, with the percentage of p24⁺ cells ranging from 4% to 49% between donors). (E) IL-6 production by MDMs infected with ΔNef+S5 relative to that by MDMs infected with WT+S5 (set to 1) (D to F) Shown are data points from cells of individual donors, with the mean of all donors indicated by a black line. (F) Pearson’s correlation between the WT+S5/ΔNef+S5 infectivity ratio and the induction of IL-6 upon infection with ΔNef+S5 particles. Statistics (Student's t test): n.s., nonsignificant; **, P < 0.01.