FIG 2.

Replication of HIV-1 AD8 in MDMs is not impacted by different Tat isoforms. (A) AD8 encodes a 101-residue Tat protein (Tat101), while HIV-1 NL-43 encodes a shorter, 86-residue protein due to a premature stop codon in the 2nd coding exon (Tat86). (B) MDMs were infected with wild-type AD8 (Tat101, red circles) or AD8 Tat86 (black triangles). A Vpr-defective AD8 variant (encoding Tat101) known to exhibit an attenuated replication phenotype in MDMs was included as a reference (blue open circles). Mock-infected cells (black circles) were cultured in parallel. Virus replication was monitored for 16 days by RT assay. Mean and error bars representing SEM from triplicate infections are shown. (C) Cells from panel B were collected on day 16 and processed for immunoblotting using antibodies to human MRC1 (hMRC1), HIV-1 (p55, CA), and tubulin (tub). The red star in the hMRC1 blot indicates a nonspecific background band as noted in Fig. 1B and C.