Fig. 5

HIV-1-infected macrophages induce neurotoxicity through GLS1-containing MVs. At 7 days post-infection, mock-infected and HIV-1 infected macrophages were treated with GW4869 at different dosages for 24 h. Cell-free supernatants and MVs were collected and added to RCN cultures for neurotoxicity. DMSO was used as solvent control for GW4869. a, b Neurotoxic potentials of the supernatants were determined by MAP2 ELISA assay (a) and quantification of MAP2 fluorescence in immunostaining (b). c-j Neurotoxic potentials of MVs were determined by MAP2 ELISA assay (i) and immunostaining (c-h) followed by quantification of the intensity of MAP2 fluorescence after MVs treatment. NM in panels A and I stands for neuronal media. * and *** denote p < 0.05 and 0.001 in comparison to mock-treated control, respectively; ## and ### denote p < 0.01 and 0.001 in comparison to DMSO-pretreated HIV-infected group, respectively. Results are expressed as means ± SD of triplicate samples and are representative of three independent experiments