Fig. 1
Cocaine alters the components and release of EVs in HIV-1 infected immune cells. A–C T-cells, DCs and macrophages were infected with 10 ng/ml HIV-1 and treated with or without 10 µM cocaine and EVs released were extracted by ultracentrifugation and quantified by NanoSight. Fold change was calculated with respect to the number of EVs released by uninfected, untreated cells. Data labels represent the absolute number of EVs released (× 109 / ml). D–F EVs were extracted by ultracentrifugation, lysed and 15 µg of lysate protein were analyzed for the indicated molecular markers of EVs and HIV-1 proteins by Western blotting. GAPDH served as loading control. G–I Quantitative analysis of Integrin β1 and LFA-1 in D-F. The band intensity in each lane was determined by ImageJ software. The percent (%) change of each lane was determined by considering uninfected, untreated band as 100%. Data represent the mean ± SD of 3 independent experiments, and p-values were calculated relative to untreated controls (*p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p < 0.001)