Redundancy of effector molecules with regards to the association between HIV-specific CD8⁺ T cell polyfunctionality and T cell mediated target killing.

<p><i>In vitro</i> cultured human HIV-specific (KK10) CD8⁺ T cell clones were incubated with a serial dilution of KK10-antigen [10^-6M—10^-13M] loaded target cells. T cell polyfunctionality was analysed by multiparametric flow cytometry (CD107a, IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-2, MIP-1β). <b>A)</b> Stacked bar diagram indicates the probability distribution of T cells expressing 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 simultaneous effector molecules, given that they express one particular effector molecule. <b>B)</b> Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) analysis of the 5 effector molecules shows the lowest VIF for each molecule after iterative retraction of the effector molecule with the highest VIF>5 (cf. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0128714#pone.0128714.t003" target="_blank">Table 3</a>).