Fig. 3

CD8⁺ clones are over-represented among the most abundant HTLV-1-infected clones in the blood. The clones detected by integration site analysis of PBMC samples from 12 HTLV-1-infected subjects were identified as either CD4⁺ or CD8⁺ if they were re-detected in the sorted samples. a The 50 most abundant clones are shown for each patient. For each clone, the number of proviruses detected is shown). The CD8⁺ clones (pink) included the most abundant single clone in 5/12 patients, and at least one of the three most abundant clones of 8/12 patients (including all HAM/TSP patients). b CD8⁺ clones are significantly more likely to be of high abundance, i.e. clones with greater than 1 cell per 10000 PBMCs (p < 0.0001, Fisher’s exact test). c Clones were ranked in descending order of abundance. CD8⁺ clones were significantly more likely to be present among the top 10 clones than among the next 10 (clones 11–20) (p = 0.012, Fisher’s exact test)