Comparison of Tat-neutralizing potential of plasma samples.

<p>(a) Antibody-mediated neutralization of exogenous recombinant full-length Tat. The percent inhibition of transactivation at 48 h was plotted on the y-axis with the following samples on the x-axis: HIV+Tat+, HIV-1-seropositive and anti-Tat-seropositive plasma; HIV+Tat-, HIV-1-seropositive and anti-Tat-seronegative plasma; and HIV-, healthy blood-donor plasma. The data on the y-axis represent the inhibition of the SEAP release in the culture supernatant of HEK293T cells, as described in the “Materials and Methods” section. The boxes represent the interquartile range, the line inside each box represents the median of the samples and the whiskers represent the range of the data. Statistical significance was tested using Wilcoxon non-parametric test. (b) A comparison of eight Tat-antibody reactive types in the six response profiles and percent inhibition of transactivation. The percent inhibition at 48 h was plotted on the y-axis with samples classified by Tat antibody response profile on the x-axis. Statistical significance was tested using Nemenyi non-parametric test. * p < 0.05 comparing HIV+Tat- and HIV- groups. ^#p < 0.05 comparing HIV- group.