Figure 5.

Anti-HIV-1 effect of bacterial EVs in human cervico-vaginal tissues ex vivo. Cervico-vaginal tissue blocks were infected with EV-pretreated HIV-1_BaL and cultured for 12 days, with replacement every 3 days of tissue culture medium containing or not containing 1×10¹⁰ EVs/mL derived from S. aureus, E. faecium, E. faecalis, and G. vaginalis. Replication of HIV-1 was evaluated from measurements of the capsid protein p24_gag in tissue culture medium and is represented as a percentage of HIV-1 replication in untreated control. Presented are means ± SEM from tissues of at least four donors. Asterisks indicate statistical significance by one-way ANOVA multiple comparison with Dunnett’s correction (**p < 0.01, ****p < 0.0001).