Figure 1.
Categorization of subjects into two distinct disease progression groups.
Two examples of representative patients categorized into either long-term survivors with No Immune Suppression (NS) (A) or Severe Immune Suppression (SS) (B). The dotted line is the boundary of the CD4% value of that progression group. The shading shows the window from within which PBMC samples were chosen for study.
Table 1.
Patient cohort characteristics.
Figure 2.
Distribution of HLA class I alleles in study Cohort.
The frequency of expression of HLA class I A alleles (A) and B alleles (B) among the two progression groups in the cohort was compared to the expected frequency in a Hispanic and African American cohort (see methods). Associations between HLA Class I alleles and clinical characteristics are shown in panels C–F. Associations between log viral load (LCL) of all subjects and class I HLA-A alleles (C) and B alleles (D), are ordered from lowest LVL to highest. Associations between CD4% values and HLA Alleles (E) and B alleles (F) are ordered from highest CD4% to lowest. The solid line in each column is the median value for that HLA allele. The dotted line is the median value of the total cohort.
Figure 3.
Association between Gag specific responses and disease progression.
The magnitude of the total observed Gag specific responses (the sum of all the epitope- specific responses) is compared between the two groups in panel A. Correlations between LVL and the magnitude of the total observed Gag response are displayed for both progression groups in panels B and C.
Figure 4.
Areas of Gag targeted by CD8+ T cell responses.
The frequency of recognition of individual single peptides are shown for the total cohort in panel A. The NIH AIDS Reagent peptides for HIV-1 Gag are represented by their peptide number. A comparison of the frequency of recognition of single peptides between the two progression groups is shown in panel B. The percentage of each group responding to 6 of the individual Gag peptides is shown in panel C.
Table 2.
Frequently Targeted Peptides.
Figure 5.
Immunodominance of CD8+ T cell responses restricted by HLA-B alleles.
The frequency of several HLA-B alleles restricting the immunodominant response of individuals expressing that allele, shown for each group.
Figure 6.
Comparison of differentiation profiles of Gag specific effector CD8+ T cells between progression groups.
All Gag specific responses are shown in panel A. Only immuodominant responses (the response with the highest magnitude for each individual) are shown in panel B. The line in each column represents the median value. The differentiation phenotype is referenced beneath each column.
Figure 7.
Comparison of cytokine secretion of HIV-1 Gag specific CD8+ T cells between progression groups.
Secretion of single cytokines is shown in panel A. Functional profile of HIV-1 Gag specific CD8+ T cells is shown in panel B. (+) denotes a positive response for that particular cytokine. Gray bars represent NS subjects and black bars represent SS subjects. The solid bars represent the mean and the error bars represent the standard error of the mean.