Plasminogen activator system in tonsils of HAART-treated HIV-1+ individual.

<p>Tonsils from one HIV-1+individual under cART (MA35) tested positive for HIV p24Gag in the germinative center of tonsil (panel A, OM 10x), and expressed both uPAR and c-uPAR (panel B; seven tonsils from uninfected individuals (#36–46) were used as reference control). Sections used for Western blotting were from snap-frozen tissue blocks, whereas lysates from stably transfected HEK cells expressing uPAR and c-uPAR were used as positive controls; because of high levels of expression of these antigens in HEK cells actin was not detected at exposure time used for showing actin from tissue lysate. Chemotaxis of (panel C) and HIV expression from (panel D) U1 cells were measured as described in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0070606#pone-0070606-g003" target="_blank">Figure 3</a>. Gray squares in panel D represent the value of input virus in the conditioned supernatants at the end of the 4 days of culture. Cell-associated HIV proteins were measured in U1 cells cultivated for 4 days with the stimuli reported at the bottom of the panel (E) and viral proteins were identified based on their molecular weight (right side of the panel). PMA (10 nM) was used as positive control for inducing virus expression (n = 3).