Figure 5

Responses to beneficial OLP are of higher functional avidity and suppress in vitro viral replication more effectively. (A) Responses to the four beneficial OLP located in HIV-1 clade B Gag p24 were retested using a peptide set of 10 mers overlapping by 9 residues. A total of 21 responses in HIV-1 controllers and 24 responses in HIV-1 non-controllers were titrated and the SD50% compared between the two groups, showing a significantly higher functional avidity in the controllers (p = 0.0051, Mann Whitney). (B) Responses to 17 different optimally defined CTL epitopes located in beneficial, neutral and non-beneficial OLP were titrated in samples from 78 HIV infected individuals with variable viral load and disease status. The median SD50% (ng/ml) was defined for each epitope and compared to the OLP-specific protective ratio (Spearman Rank test, p = 0.0020). (C) Ten individuals who mounted responses to well-defined optimal CTL epitopes located in beneficial as well as in non-beneficial clade B OLP were identified and their responses titrated. The SD50% for responses detected in the same individual were compared (Wilcoxon matched pairs test, p = 0.0039). (D) In-vitro viral replication inhibition assays [48] were performed using a Nef modified and Raltegravir resistant test virus and purified CTL effector populations from the same individual targeting beneficial and non-beneficial OLP. One representative experiment of three assays conducted in different individuals is show. Levels of Gag p24 were determined after 4 days of co-culture of effector cells and auologous CD4 T cells used as target cells. Target cells were stimulated 3 days prior with dual-specific anti-CD3/8 mAb and infected at a MOI of 0.1. The negative control contained wells with target cells only ("no CD8").