Fig. 1

HIV-1 subtype C Envelopes induce inflammatory immune response. Monocyte derived dendritic cells (MDDC) were stimulated with pseudovirus (PSV) of Envelopes (Env) cloned from variants infecting four participants during acute (TF, black bars) and chronic (CI, white bars) stages of infection. Levels of a IL-10, b TNF-α, c IL-6, d IL-1β, e IL-12p40 f MIP-1α, g MIP-1β, and h IL-8 in the culture supernatants of MDDC were measured by Luminex assay. PSV generated using pSG3∆Env only was used as negative control (Ctrl, grey bar). Mann–Whitney test was used to compare cytokine levels to the negative control and Wilcoxon Rank Signed test was used to compare paired Env from the same participant (TF vs CI). Bar graphs represent medians of each cytokine (pg/mL) concentration of 8, 7, 6, 5 and 5 biological repeats for IL-8, IL-10, TNF-α, IL-6 and chemokines, respectively. Error bars show standard deviations (SD). P-values were adjusted for multiple comparisons by the false discovery rate step-down procedure