Figure 4

Effect of hStau-2 expression on viral p24 levels. A) Over-expression of hStau-2 increased HIV-1 production: hStau-2 over-expressed HEK293T cells or control cells were transfected with pNL4-3 pro-viral DNA and scored after 48 hours for p24 by ELISA in the culture supernatant. The inset shows over-expression of hStau-2 after transfection with increasing concentration of hStau2-59 construct. There was a significant increase in the p24 levels when 0.5 and 1ug of hStau2-59 construct was used. B) The relative quantification of full length (9 kb) viral transcript. Viral transcripts were quantified from hStau-2 overexpressed and control cells by qRT-PCR and normalized to β-actin. C) siRNA mediated knockdown of hStau-2 reduced HIV-1 production: hStau-2 siRNA or scrambled siRNA were transfected one day prior to pNL4-3 transfection in HEK293T cells. Inset: Semiquantitative RT-PCR gel showing a decrease in hStau-2 expression when hStau-2 specific siRNA was used. The viral p24 levels in the culture supernatant were progressively reduced when hStau-2 specific siRNA was used in a dose dependent manner. The experiments were done more than 3 times and error bars represents ± SD. *p value ≤ 0.05 were taken as significant.