Constitutive expression of RIP, TRADD, and TRAF-2 in blood T lymphocytes from control donors and HIV-infected patients.

(A) Ex vivo expression of TRADD, RIP, and TRAF-2 was assessed by Western blot analysis from whole cell extracts prepared from sorted CD2⁺ T cells. As a control, β-actin expression is reported for each donor for TRADD and RIP (upper part) and TRAF2 (lower part) expression after restripping of each membrane. Data are shown for 3 controls (lanes 1-3), 5 HIV-1⁺ patients including 3 nonresponders (NR) (lanes 4-6) and 2 responders (R) (lanes 7 and 8) to TNFR1- and TNFR2-mediated apoptosis. In the same experiment, the percent of T-cell apoptosis was determined in response to TNFR1 or TNFR2 ligation, as described in the legend of Figure 1. Data are given as Δ of apoptosis corresponding to percent apoptosis in TNFR-stimulated cultures minus percent apoptosis in medium. (B) Scanning of autoradiograms has been performed using Color It !TM 3.0. The values were obtained using the NIH Image 1.62b7. Data represent the ratio of the peak area for each protein divided by the peak area for actin.