1a). Moreover, no

correlation was found between PD-1 expression on HIV-specific CD8+ T cells and the remaining non-activated, non-HIV-specific CD8+ cells; this suggested that PD-1 levels on cytotoxic click here T cells for a given individual were not set at a generalized level, but were rather dependent upon the nature of the antigen and infection activity. Due to technical limitations in the flow cytometry analyses, PD-1 estimates were not available for the naive, memory and effector CD4+ and CD8+ T cell subsets, thus some of the antigen-specific differences in PD-1 expression might have been attributed partly to different distributions of resting and effector CD8+ T cells [35,36]. Day et al. [30] found that PD-1-blocking monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) enhanced CD4+ T cell responses to HIV antigens, which suggests indirectly that PD-1 is

up-regulated even on HIV-specific CD4+ T cells. Here, we confirmed this concept because PD-1 was up-regulated particularly on Gag- and Nef-responsive CD4+CD154+ T cells compared to the majority of non-activated cells (Fig. 1a). In contrast to PD-1 on CD8+ T cell subsets, PD-1 on CMV-specific CD4+ cells was both similar to (Fig. 1a) and correlated with PD-1 on both Gag- (r = 0·57, P = 0·02) and Nef-specific (r = 0·72, P < 0·01) CD4+ T cells. Subsequently, we examined how HIV-specific immune FDA-approved Drug Library solubility dmso responses to Gag, Nef and Env related to progression and other predictors including CD38, current CD4 count and viral load in asymptomatic untreated patients. In the lack of clinical events, progression was measured as current and prospective CD4+ T cell change rates. CD38 density was measured on CD8+ T cells and on the CD8+PD-1+ subset. These measures for CD38 correlated (r = 0·80, P < 0·01), but in accordance with our previous results [14], CD38 on the PD-1+ subset was, in general, statistically stronger. CD38 density will henceforth therefore be reported only for the CD8+PD-1+ T cell subset (Table 1). Gag-specific CD8+ T cell responses relate to the CD4 change rate and markers of chronic immune activation.  Only Gag-specific CD8+ T cell responses correlated with both the current and the prospective

CD4 count change rates, particularly the total concentrations of CD8+ O-methylated flavonoid Gag-specific T cells in the circulation (Table 3). Moreover, patients who had the highest frequency of Gag-specific CD8+ cells (upper tertile) demonstrated substantially slower current CD4 loss rates than those having few (lower tertile) [−62·9 versus−195·1 CD4 cells/µl/year (medians), respectively, P = 0·04] (Fig. 2a). Furthermore, these observations were confirmed in those patients whose prospective CD4 change rate could be calculated (r = 0·85, P < 0·01) (Table 3). In agreement with these results, CD38 correlated only with Gag-specific responses (Table 3), but not with Env- and Nef-responses, current CD4+ T cell count, viral load, D-dimer, nor to time infected or age.