Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 6, 2026
Assessing the Innate Sensing of HIV-1 Infected CD4+ T Cells by Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells Using an Ex vivo Co-culture System.
Published on: September 1, 2015
Culturing of human peripheral blood cells reveals unsuspected lymphocyte responses relevant to HIV disease
Bita Sahaf1, Kondala Atkuri, Kartoosh Heydari
1Department of Genetics and Department of Pediatrics, Division of Stem Cell Transplantation, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Abstract:
Recombinant HIV-Tat (Tat) induces extensive apoptosis in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) cultured in typical CO2 incubators, which are equilibrated with air (21% O2). However, as we show here, Tat apoptosis induction fails in PBMCs cultured at physiological oxygen levels (5% O2). Under these conditions, Tat induces PBMCs to divide, efficiently primes them for HIV infection, and supports virus production by the infected cells. Furthermore, Tat takes only 2 h to prime PBMCs under these conditions. In contrast, PHA/IL-2, which is widely used to prime cells for HIV infection, takes 2-3 days. These findings strongly recommend culturing primary cells at physiological oxygen levels. In addition, they suggest HIV-Tat as a key regulator of HIV disease progression.
