Immunodominant HIV-1 Cd4+ T Cell Epitopes in Chronic Untreated Clade C HIV-1 Infection
Figure 2
The majority of the HIV-1 C clade CD4+ epitopes cluster in the Gag region.
ELISPOT screening was conducted on 32 randomly selected subjects. (A) 33 CD4+ restricted epitopes were identified, with 27 epitopes located in the Gag region, 3 in the Polymerase region, 1 in the Vpr region and 2 in the Nef region. There were no CD4+ epitopes present in the Vif, Vpu, Rev, Tat, or Envelope proteins. (B) The peptides identified by the ELISPOT assay utilizing CD8+ depleted PBMCs were confirmed by flow cytometry using whole PBMCs to be CD4+ restricted. The dot plot above represents data from the negative control on the left and a CD4+ IFN-γ response to the p24 Gag peptide YVDRFFKTLRAEQATADV.