Figure 7. Defective proviruses can express Gag and functional Nef.

(A) Schematic representing deletions in HIV-1 proviral sequences obtained from Tem CD4⁺ T cells from HIV-1⁺ participants (brown) and deletions generated in NL4-3-eGFP constructs (blue). The full-length HIV-1 NL4-3 construct is represented in black (NL-FL). HEK293T cells were transfected with HIV-1 NL constructs. (B) Representative Western blot of 2 independent experiments showing Nef (green) and Gag (top-red) expression. β-Actin was used as a protein loading control (bottom-red). (C) Representative flow cytometry of 2 independent experiments showing eGFP and p24 expression in transfected HEK293T cells. (D) Representative histograms of 2 independent experiments showing HLA-A*02 gMFI in eGFP^– and eGFP⁺ cells.