Fig. 10

Intracellular ATP levels, GSH/GSSG ratio, caspase-3/7 activation, mtDNA transcription and mitochondrial content in HIV-1 infected T lymphocytes. PBLs were infected pNL4.3-TatM1I vector along with pcDNA3 or with pCMV-Tat101 vector. pEGFP was co-transfetion as a control of transfection efficiency. a Flow cytometry quantification of the percentage of living cells expressing EGFP was used to analyze transfection efficiency (upper panel). Quantification of p24/Gag in culture supernatant was used as control of infection (lower panel). b Intracellular ATP production. c Intracellular concentration of GSH/GSSG. d Caspase-3/7 activation. Intracellular ATP, GSH/GSSG ratio and caspase-3/7 activation were measured by chemiluminescence using commercial assays. e qPCR analysis of mRNAs levels from the mtDNA-encoded genes MTND-2 and COX-II. mRNA levels of nucelar-encoded S18 expression were used as house-keeping gene. f qPCR analysis of mitochondria DNA matching with regions coding for COX-II and MTND-2 genes. Nuclear-encoded DNA S18 was used as house-keeping gene. Data shown are mean and SEM from three independent experiments. Statistical significance was calculated by Mann–Whitney test or Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01)