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Figure 2 | Retrovirology

Figure 2

From: Role of the C-terminal domain of the HIV-1 glycoprotein in cell-to-cell viral transmission between T lymphocytes

Figure 2

Cell-to-cell and cell-free transmission of HIV-Wt and mutant virions. A. FACS analysis of uninfected donor cells and GFP-labelled H9 (np) or dye-labelled MT-4 (p) uninfected target cells. B. Virus transmissions from H9 (np) donor cells highly infected (high) with VSV-G pseudotyped HIV-Wt, HIV-Env-Tr712 or HIV-EnvFus-. Top panels: cell-to-cell transmission. Washed donor cells were adjusted to 50% infection level with uninfected cells and then mixed with a 4-fold excess of H9 target cells. FACS analysis was performed as in A. The percentage target cells infected with HIV-Wt was set at 100% and the levels of transmission of HIV-Env-Tr712 or HIV-EnvFus-, calculated relative to this. Bottom panels: cell-free infection. Equal amounts of released virions from highly infected donor cells were employed to infect susceptible MT-4 cells as described in the Materials and Methods section. At 48 h p.i., the cells were analysed by intracellular p24 FACS. The percentage of cells infected by HIV-Wt (right peak) was set at 100% and the infectivities of HIV-Env-Tr712 and control HIV-Env Fus- calculated relative to this. C. Virus transmissions from H9 (np) donor cells weakly infected (low) with VSV-G pseudotyped HIV-Wt or HIV-Env-Tr712. Washed donor cells were adjusted to 10% infection level with uninfected cells and then mixed with a 9-fold excess of H9 target cells. Further procedures were as in B. D. As in C. except that MT-4 cells (p) were employed both as donor and target cells. E. Mean percentage transmission levels, relative to that of HIV-Wt, of HIV-Env-Tr712 from H9 (np) donor cells infected to high levels (left panel) (12 experiments), H9 (np) donor cells infected to low levels (middle panel) (4 experiments) or MT-4 (p) donor cells infected to low levels (right panel) (4 experiments). The statistical significance of the respective differences is shown (Student's t-test).

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