Categorization of subjects into two distinct disease progression groups.

<p>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.</p

Association between CD57 expression on CD4 T cells and disease progression.

<p><b>A.</b> Comparison of CD57 expression on CD4 T cells between progression groups. <b>B.</b> Correlation between log viral load (LVL) and CD57 expression on CD4 T cells. <b>C.</b> Correlation between CD4% and expression of CD57 on CD4 T cells.</p

Patient cohort characteristics.

a<p>Log viral load.</p>b<p>H = Hispanic; AA = African American.</p

Comparison of cytokine secretion of HIV-1 Gag specific CD8+ T cells between progression groups.

<p>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.</p

Patient cohort characteristics.

a<p>Log viral load.</p>b<p>H = Hispanic; AA = African American; M = Male; F = Female; Race was not available for 1 subject in the NS group and 2 subjects in the SS group.</p><p>The numbers in parentheses represent 95% confidence intervals.</p

Distribution of HLA class I alleles in study Cohort.

<p>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 <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0021135#s4" target="_blank">methods</a>). 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.</p

Comparison of differentiation profiles of Gag specific effector CD8+ T cells between progression groups.

<p>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.</p

Association between Gag specific responses and disease progression.

<p>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.</p

Areas of Gag targeted by CD8+ T cell responses.

<p>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.</p

Comparison of differentiation profiles of total CD4 T cells between progression groups.

<p>We used expression of CCR7 and CD45RA to categorize CD4 T cells into one of four differentiation phenotypes. Filled circles (•) represent LTS-SS patients and empty circles (○) represent LTS-NS patients. The line in each column represents the median and the differentiation phenotype is beneath each column.</p