Figure 2

Suppression of replication of NL4-3 escape variant viruses. A-C: Unstimulated CD4⁺ T cells from HLA-B*5703 positive ES were infected with one of seven NL4-3 variants (wild type, black; I147L, orange; A146P, navy; A163S, red; A146P/A163S, purple; T242N/G248A, brown; A146P/A163S/T242N/G248A, teal) and cultured with autologous CD8⁺ T cells isolated from fresh PBMCs (A) or PBMCs stimulated with either wild type (B) or escape variant (C) HLA-B*57- Gag restricted Gag peptides for 7 days before isolation. CD8⁺ T cells were co-cultured with infected CD4⁺ T cells at three effector to target ratios. D-F: Unstimulated CD4⁺ T cells from healthy donors were infected with one of the seven NL4-3 variants used above and co-cultured with CD8⁺ T cells as was done with ES (D, unstimulated; E, wild type peptide stimulated; F, escape variant stimulated). Infection of CD4⁺ T cells was quantified by flow cytometry on days 3 (left) and 5 (right) after infection by GFP expression. Median values are plotted. For ES, n = 7. For healthy donors, n = 5.