Figure 2

HSV-2 infects human MDMs and alters CD4 and CCR5 expression on the cell surface. A) HSV-2 replication in human MDMs. Purified human MDMs were infected with two different MOI of HSV-2, as indicated. HSV-2 titre in the cellular supernatants was measured by plaque assay at different times post infection (p.i.). B) Effect of HSV-2 infection on CD4 and CCR5. Uninfected MDMs (HSV-2 -) and HSV-2 infected MDMs (HSV-2 +) were analyzed for CD4 and CCR5 cells surface expression by FACS analysis, 72 hours post infection. The percentage of CD4 and CCR5 positive cells is reported (left panel). The right panel reports the FACS histograms showing the mean fluorescence intensity for both CD4 and CCR5 molecules in uninfected (black line) and HSV-2 infected (red line) MDMs. When values are reported, they represent the mean of four independent experiments. The error bars represent the standard deviation. Statistically significant differences between HSV-2 infected and un-infected cells, identified by employing the unpaired t-Student test, are indicated with the star (p < 0.05).