Higher Tregs frequency linked with PTB in individuals co-infected with or without HIV-1.

<p><b>A.</b> Cumulative data depicting frequency of CD25⁺Foxp3⁺ Tregs within CD4⁺ T-cell in healthy controls (HC), patients with Pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) and HIV-1 infected individuals with or without PTB co-infection. <b>B.</b><i>Association of increased Foxp3⁺ CD4 T-cell frequency with HIV-1 disease progression (decrease in CD4 count)</i>. Dot plot showing significant negative correlation between T-cell proliferation and CD4⁺Foxp3⁺ (red dots, Spearman r = −0.7769, p value <0.0001)/CD25⁺Foxp3⁺ (black dots, Spearman r = −0.6897, p value <0.0001) frequency in HIV-1 infected individuals. The solid line represents the linear regression of points and dotted lines represents 95% confidence band for their mean values. Rho and p values are from the Spearman rank correlation test. <b>C.</b><i>Increase in the FoxP3⁺CD25^low/-ve CD4 T-cells in PTB and HIV-PTB co-infected individuals</i>. Whisker box plot showing frequency of FoxP3 positive cells within CD25^low/-ve cells in the PBMCs of study subject groups. The horizontal line within the box indicates the median, the boundaries of the box indicate the 25^th- and 75^th -percentile, and the whiskers indicate the highest and lowest values of the frequency of FoxP3 positive cells. <b>D.</b><i>Low T-cell proliferation in HIV-PTB co-infected individuals</i>. Whisker box plot showing the proliferative T-cell response profile to PHA [stimulation for 96 hours] in PBMCs from healthy controls, patients with PTB and HIV-1 infected individuals with or without <i>M. tuberculosis</i> co-infection. Stimulation indices were determined by comparison with paired unstimulated cells from each individual. The horizontal line within the box indicates the median, the boundaries of the box indicate the 25^th- and 75^th -percentile, and the whiskers indicate the highest and lowest values of the stimulation indices. <b>E.</b><i>Association of increased Foxp3⁺ CD4 T-cells frequency with decreased T-cell proliferative response</i>. Dot plot showing significant negative correlation between T-cell proliferation and Foxp3⁺ (red dots, Spearman r = −0.5095, p value <0.0077)/CD25⁺Foxp3⁺ (black dots, Spearman r = −0.4715, p value = 0.0134) in HIV-1 infected individuals. The solid line represents the linear regression of points and dotted lines represents 95% confidence band for their mean values. Rho and p values are from the Spearman rank correlation test.