Fig. 5

The R848-induced block to infection is associated with post-entry destabilization of HIV-1 genomic RNA. Monocytes from healthy donors were untreated (−, grey) or treated with 1 μM R848 (+, blue) for 24 h after which the cells were infected with HIV-1 luciferase reporter virus in the presence of nevirapine (NVP). The cells were harvested 0.5, 1 and 3 h post-infection and total RNA was prepared. The HIV genomic RNA copy number was quantified by reverse transcriptase RT-qPCR using primers specific for the luciferase reporter gene (a), the 5′ LTR (b) or the 3′ LTR (c). The viral RNA copies were normalized to GAPDH mRNA and the copy number in untreated cells harvested 0.5 h post-infection was set to 1. *p ≤ 0.05, **p = <0.001, ***p = 0.0005 and ns not significant