Interleukin-12p70 Expression by Dendritic Cells of HIV-1-Infected Patients Fails to Stimulate gag-Specific Immune Responses
Figure 3
Effect of addition of TLR7/8 ligand, R848, and IFN-γ for activation of DCs on HIV gag-specific T cell responses after 1 week of stimulation. Freshly thawed PBLs were directly incubated in ELISpot with HIV gag-derived peptides (Day 0) or PBLs were stimulated for one week with autologous HIV gag mRNA-electroporated DCs. For this, DCs were either matured with a simplified cytokine cocktail (TNF-α and PGE2) (a) and (b) or DCs were matured with a simplified cytokine cocktail in combination with TLR7/8 ligand resiquimod (R848) and IFN-γ (c) and (d). Thereafter, cocultured PBLs were restimulated with HIV gag-derived peptides and evaluated in ELISpot for detection of antigen-specific IFN-γ (a), (c), and (e) or IL-2 (b, d, and f) secretion. Results are shown as mean of triplicate analyses for each donor displaying a positive response (), as defined in the Materials and Methods section.
