The cell culture media containing HIV-1 particles were centrifuged at 1,200 × g for 5 min. The supernatants were passed through a 0.45-μm filter (ThermoFisher) and layered onto 20% sucrose for a 2-h ultracentrifugation at 25,000 × g at 4 °C. The virion pellets were subsequently isolated using anti-CD44 microbeads with a magnetic-based method according to the manufacturers’ instructions (µMACS™ VitalVirus HIV Isolation Kit, Miltenyi Biotec). The purified virions were lysed with RIPA buffer (ThermoFisher) and subjected to SDS-PAGE for western blotting as previously described (20 (link)).