VZV infection inhibits phosphorylation of MLKL during TNF-induced necroptosis.

(A) Immunofluorescence staining for phosphorylated MLKL (red) and VZV IE62 antigen (green) in mock and VZV infected HT-29 adenocarcinoma cells untreated (DMSO control) or treated with TNF (T; 30 ng/ml), BV-6 (S; 1 μM) and z-VAD-fmk (V; 25 μM) for 7–8 h to induce necroptosis. Following immunostaining cells were counterstained with DAPI (blue). (B) The percentage of cells that were pMLKL positive was determined by randomly imaging 10–20 non-overlapping regions of each slide and manually counting cells from 3 independent experiments. Error bars show standard error of the mean, statistical significance was determined using a one-way ANOVA. Scale bar indicates 20 μm.