Figure 6

Functional validation of the crucial residues in the TMD of BST-2 for Vpu interaction. (a) Western blot analysis of the cellular lysates and the corresponding viral lysates following the cotransfection of the HIV-1 Gag-Pol construct (containing gag and pol genes) and other plasmids into HEK293T cells. (b) Relative BST-2 reduction was determined by densitometric scanning using the ImageJ program (NIH) aiming at the specific bands. BST-2 level in cells that were cotransfected with R-B or R-B mutants and together with pcDNA was arbitrarily set as 100%. The data shown was the average of three independent experiments. (c) Relative HIV-1 VLPs release was assessed by densitometric scanning using the ImageJ program (NIH). The level of HIV-1 VLPs released from cells that were cotransfected of the HIV-1 Gag-Pol construct and R-B or R-B mutants and together with pcDNA was arbitrarily set as 100%. The data shown was the average of three independent experiments.