Amino acid variation accumulates in the seven Mamu-B*08-restricted CD8⁺ T cell epitopes before and after CD8⁺ cell depletion in three <i>Mamu-B*08</i>-positive EC macaques.

<p>Virus was isolated from r00078, r01064, and r98016 at the indicated times before and after CD8⁺ cell depletion. Pre-depletion samples were obtained one month prior to depleting antibody treatment, when virus loads were <500 vRNA copy Eq/ml. An asterisk (*) indicates a Rev sequence obtained five months prior to CD8⁺ cell depletion in animal r00078. Pre-depletion sequence from r98016 containing Rev_44–51RL8 could not be amplified despite repeated attempts and is listed as n.d. (not done). Viral RNA from pre-depletion plasma samples from r01064 could also not be amplified despite repeated attempts due to low concentrations of vRNA. Viral RNA was isolated from cell-free plasma and analyzed by direct sequencing of viral amplicons spanning the SIV genes <i>vif</i>, <i>rev</i>, and <i>nef</i>. Amino acids residues immediately N-terminal to two Nef epitopes are listed and denoted with a space. Those amino acids identical to the wild-type sequence are shown as dots. Complete amino acid replacements are shown in uppercase; sites of mixed-base heterogeneity are shown as lowercase.