<i>In vitro</i> HIV suppression assay.

<p><b>(A)</b><i>In vitro</i> HIV suppression assay mediated by <i>ex vivo</i> 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>(B)</b><i>In vitro</i> 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. <b>(C)</b> Percentages of <i>ex vivo</i> HIV-infected CD4⁺ T cells (CD3^posCD8^negP24^pos) in VC (N = 8, filled circle) and NC (N = 13, open rectangle) <b>(D)</b> 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.</p

Correlation between HIV suppressive activity and pVL.

<p><i>In vitro</i> HIV suppression assay mediated by <i>ex vivo</i> 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.</p

Measurement of functional quality of HIVp24-specific CD8⁺ T cells using polychromatic flow cytometry.

<p><b>(A)</b> 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>(B)</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. <b>(C)</b> The correlation between the absolute cell numbers of 5-functional HIVp24-specific CD8⁺ T cells and pVL was analysed using Spearman’s rank test.</p

<i>In vitro</i> HIV suppression assay in various E:T ratios.

<p><b>(A)</b><i>In vitro</i> HIV suppression assay mediated by <i>ex vivo</i> 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>(B)</b><i>In vitro</i> 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).</p

Measurements of IFNγ-producing cell responses using ELISpot assay.

<p><b>(A)</b> Breadth of T-cell responses against 23 HIVp24-specific OLPs from VC (N = 19, filled circle) and NC (N = 42, open rectangle) <b>(B)</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) <b>(C)</b> Cumulative magnitude of T-cell responses against 23 HIVp24-specific OLPs in VC (N = 19, filled circle) and NC (N = 42, open rectangle) <b>(D)</b> 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). <b>(E and F)</b> 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.</p

Characteristics of HIV-infected volunteers.

<p>*<i>p value <0</i>.<i>05</i>,</p><p><i>VC = Viraemic controller</i>, <i>NC = Noncontrollers</i>, <i>pVL = Plasma viral loads</i>, <i>HLA = Human leucocyte antigen</i>, <i>Data showed medians and range in parentheses</i></p><p>Characteristics of HIV-infected volunteers.</p

Predominant recognition of OLP-038 in Cw*0102+ve subjects.

<p>ELISpot responses in Cw0102+ve and Cw0102-ve subjects were tested. The majority of Cw*0102+ve subjects (25/33; 76 percent) exhibited an ELISpot response against OLP-038, versus a minority of the Cw*0102-ve subjects (4/67; 6 percent); <i>p</i><0.0001.</p

Cw*0102-associated mutations in YI9 impair CD8+ T cell recognition.

<p>BLCL from Cw*0102+ve subjects 5043 and 5070 were pulsed with serial dilutions of wildtype and variant forms of YI9 and tested for recognition by ELISpot assay. P2 mutation S278K, P4 mutation V280T, and P5 mutation S281G all impaired recognition, with the P2 anchor mutation S278K exhibiting consistently the most significant impairment.</p

Cw*0102 associated footprints in the YI9 epitope.

<p>Gag sequences were generated from all 100 subjects and sequence variation within the YI9 epitope compared between Cw*0102+ve and Cw*0102-ve subjects. Mutations in YI9 were significantly elevated in subjects expressing Cw*0102 (p = 0.001), with the V280X and S281G mutations predominating.</p

Clinical characteristics of HIV-1 clade CRF01_AE infected subjects (N = 100).

<p>Clinical characteristics of HIV-1 clade CRF01_AE infected subjects (N = 100).</p