Figure 3
T-cell responses of CASE1 T cells to Gag, Nef, and Tat peptides. (A) Recognition of Gag and Nef, but not of Tat peptide pools by CASE1 PBMC collected in June 2011. (B) Recognition of Gag pools (A-L): pools D, E, G, H, and I contain well-defined HLA-B*57 restricted Gag epitopes. (C) Identification of epitopes recognized by CASE1 contained in Gag pools D, E, H and I. The table provides the HLA-restriction, the peptide designation and its sequence. The sequence of minimal epitopes for both Gag and Nef are shown in bold. (D) PBMC isolated from CASE1 were either left unstimulated or were stimulated with Gag peptide #25 and #26 and functionality of CD8+ T assessed by means of cytofluorimetric analysis for the production of Granzyme-B (GzB), Interferon-γ (IFN-γ), CC chemokine ligand 4 (CCL4)/Macrophage Inflammatory Protein-1β (MIP-1β) and Tumor Necrosis Factor-α (TNF-α); the cell population was subdivided into the CD45RA+ and CD45RAneg CD8+ T-cell subsets and the percentages of these subsets were calculated relative to the peptide 25 and 26 Gag-specific response. (E) Recognition of Nef overlapping peptides. The HLA-B*57 and C*06 restricted minimal epitopes contained in Nef #13 (RPMTYKAAVDLSHFLK) were: RPMTYKAAV (C*06), MTYKAAVDL (C*06), KAAVDLSHF (B*57), AAVDLSHFL (C*06); minimal epitopes in Nef #18 (LDLWIYHTQGYFPDWQNY) and Nef #19 (YHTQGYFPDWQNYT) were: HTQGYFPDW (B*57) and GYFPDWQNY (C*06). The dotted line indicates the negative cut-off of the assay.