Figure 3

Human cervical culture model. a) To rule out possible leaks in the agarose seal, Dextran blue was added to the upper chamber on day 6 of the culture. Its presence in the lower chamber was determined 20 h later to all Transwells used in the experiments, along with the negative control well with agarose only, b) the other negative control alone, with tissue and virus but without treatment or challenge and c) positive control well with tissue alone, infected with only the HIV-1 virus. d) Inhibition of HIV-1 transmission; the cervical tissue was treated with PVP-coated AgNPs at different concentrations in a Replens gel or RPMI + 10% FCS media, which was then infected with HIV-1_IIIB. HIV transmission or inhibition of transmission across the mucosa was determined in the lower chamber by formation of syncytia using indicator cells (MT-2). http://www.jnanobiotechnology.com/content/8/1/15/figure/F3