Figure 1

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 culture, and its presence in the lower chamber was determined 20 h later to all Transwells used in the experiments and negative control well with agarose only, b) other negative control with tissue alone without treatment and without challenge with virus and c) positive control well with tissue alone infected with only with HIV-1 virus. d) Inhibition of HIV-1 transmission, Cervical tissue is treated with PVP-coated AgNPs at different concentrations in a Replens gel or RPMI + 10% FCS media, which was then infected with HIV_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).