Tat promotes the transformation potential, microtube formation and VEGF production of vIL-6 expressing cells.

<p>(<b>A</b>) Soft agar analysis of the colony formation of 4E3 and control T/V cells and (<b>B</b>) plate colony formation assay for E6 and control E/V cells transduced by MOI 10 of Tat or Mock after two weeks. Photographs depict the colony formation (top; original magnification, ×100). The bars in the graph represent the mean ± SD; shown is one representative experiment of three performed (bottom). (<b>C</b>) Matrigel assay analysis of microtube formation. The photographs depict the microtubules after 6 hours of incubation (top; original magnification, ×100) and the quantified results represent the mean ± SD (bottom). (<b>D</b>) VEGF expression was analyzed by Western blot in 4E3 and T/V cells transduced by MOI 10 of Tat or Mock. The relative level of VEGF was determined by quantitative densitometry compared to actin. The relative value of VEGF in the T/V+Mock group was considered to be 1 for comparison.