Table 1.
Characteristics of HIV-infected volunteers.
Fig 1.
Measurements of IFNγ-producing cell responses using ELISpot assay.
(A) Breadth of T-cell responses against 23 HIVp24-specific OLPs from VC (N = 19, filled circle) and NC (N = 42, open rectangle) (B) Breadth of T-cell responses against HLA-B*57/B*58-restricted epitopes (N = 6) in HLA-B*57/B*58 positive VC (N = 5, filled circle) and NC (N = 9, open rectangle) (C) Cumulative magnitude of T-cell responses against 23 HIVp24-specific OLPs in VC (N = 19, filled circle) and NC (N = 42, open rectangle) (D) Cumulative magnitude of T-cell responses against HLA-B*57/B*58-restricted epitopes (N = 6) in HLA-B*57/B*58 positive VC (N = 5, filled circle) and NC (N = 9, open rectangle). (E and F) Correlation between breadth and cumulative magnitude of T-cell responses against HIVp24-specific OLPs and patient pVL were analyzed by using Spearman’s rank test.
Fig 2.
Measurement of functional quality of HIVp24-specific CD8+ T cells using polychromatic flow cytometry.
(A) Functional quality of CD8+ T-cell responses against HIVp24-specific OLPs (N = 23) in VC (N = 18, filled circle) and NC (N = 31, open rectangle) (B) Functional quality of CD8+ T-cell responses against HLA-B*57/B*58-restricted HIVp24-specific epitopes (N = 6) in HLA-B*57/B*58 positive VC (N = 5, filled circle) and NC (N = 9, open rectangle). The Y-axis represents absolute CD8+ T cells and the X-axis represents CD8+ T cells with 5-, 4-, 3-, 2-, and 1-function in VC and NC. (C) The correlation between the absolute cell numbers of 5-functional HIVp24-specific CD8+ T cells and pVL was analysed using Spearman’s rank test.
Fig 3.
In vitro HIV suppression assay.
(A) In vitro HIV suppression assay mediated by ex vivo unstimulated CD8+ T cells in VC (N = 10, filled circle), NC (N = 10, open rectangle), and healthy volunteers (HD, N = 9, filled triangle) cocultured with autologous HIV-infected CD4+ T cells at E:T ratio of 1:1 at day 7. (B) In vitro HIV suppression assay mediated by HIVp24-specific T cell lines from VC (N = 4, filled circle) and NC (N = 7, open rectangle) cocultured with autologous HIV-infected CD4+ T cells at E:T ratio of 1:1 at day 3. (C) Percentages of ex vivo HIV-infected CD4+ T cells (CD3posCD8negP24pos) in VC (N = 8, filled circle) and NC (N = 13, open rectangle) (D) Production of newly-generated HIV from CD4+ T cells from VC (N = 5, filled circle) and NC (N = 5, open rectangle) at day 7. The Y-axis depicts the concentration of HIVp24 Ag (pg/ml) from ELISA assays. *p value <0.05 and ***p value<0.001.
Fig 4.
In vitro HIV suppression assay in various E:T ratios.
(A) In vitro HIV suppression assay mediated by ex vivo unstimulated CD8+ T cells in culture with autologous CD4+ T cells at various E:T ratios of 1:1 and 0.5:1 in VC (N = 2, filled circle) and NC (N = 3, open rectangle). (B) In vitro HIV suppression assay mediated by HIVp24-specific T cell lines at various E:T ratios of 1:1 and 0.5:1 in VC (N = 2, filled circle) and NC (N = 2, open rectangle).
Fig 5.
Correlation between HIV suppressive activity and pVL.
In vitro HIV suppression assay mediated by ex vivo unstimulated CD8+ T cells at E:T ratio of 1:1 from HIV-infected volunteers (N = 19) were shown on the X-axis as percentages of HIV suppression. The pVL at the same time-point as the HIV suppression assay are presented on the Y-axis. Each symbol represents a single HIV-infected volunteer. Filled circles and open rectangles represent viraemic controllers and noncontrollers, respectively. Spearman’s rank test was analyzed as the statistic.