Fig. 5

Chronic THC administration reduced HIV/SIV infection-induced RIPK3(Ser199), PPM1B, p-MLKL(Thr357) protein expression in the intestine. p-RIPK3(Ser199) (red) (A-C), PPM1B (E-G) (green) and p-MLKL(Thr357) (green) (I-K) protein expression in colon tissues of uninfected control (A, E&I), VEH/SIV (B, F&J), and THC/SIVRMs (C, G&K). p-MLKL(Thr357) (green) protein expression in jejunum tissues before SIV infection (M) and at 5 months post SIV infection in ART suppressed VEH/SIV (N) and THC/SIV (O) RMs. Representative immunofluorescence images were captured using a Zeiss confocal microscope at 20X magnification. Quantitation of p-RIPK3(Ser199) (D), PPM1B (H) and p-MLKL(Thr357) (L&P) average positive area fluorescence in colon and jejunum epithelium was performed using the HALO software. Note the significantly reduced p-MLKL(Thr357) staining in the colon and jejunum epithelium of THC/SIV (K, O, L&P) compared to VEH/SIV (J, N, L &P) RMs. White arrows in panels I to K and M to O indicate epithelial regions. Immunofluorescence data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s multiple comparison post-hoc test. A p-value of ≤ 0.05 was considered significant. Controls refer to uninfected controls