Longitudinal assessment in functional profile of HIV-specific CD8⁺ T cells during cART with MVC intensification.

<p>A. Correlation between the total HIV-specific responses determined by direct ex-vivo ELISpot analysis (as spot-forming cells (SFC)/10⁶ PBMC) and by ICS analysis (% of IFN-γ⁺ CD8⁺ T cells). Linear regression line, and correlation coefficient and p-values (Spearman's rank correlation test) are shown. B. The change in total HIV-specific CD8⁺ T cell frequency over time by ICS analysis. Horizontal lines indicate median values of all positive responses. P values were determined by Mann-Whitney tests and shown if the significance remains after Bonferroni correction. C, D. Effector function profiles of HIV-specific CD8⁺ T cells over time in controls and MVC treated subjects. (left, baseline; middle, week 24; right, week 60). The median and IQR are indicated by horizontal lines and boxes, respectively. Differences relative to baseline values in each arm were tested for statistic significance by Mann-Whitney tests, and shown as # for p<0.05, ## for p<0.01.