Table 1.

Immunological and virological parameters of peripheral blood and lymphoid tissue

Subject*	Cell subsets			Plasma virus load†	CD4+ cell virus load‡ %	Virus isolation§	CD8+ cell anti-HIV activity¶
	CD4+ cells, %	CD8+ cells, %	CD4+:CD8+ cell ratio
1. Long-term survivor
Peripheral blood	25	69	0.4	867	0.0003	—	<0.05
Lymph node	48	44	1.1		0.0033	—	<0.05
2. Long-term survivor‖
Peripheral blood	35	43	0.8	4,554	0.0001	—	<0.05
Lymph node	52	22	1.6		0.07	—	0.1
3. Asymptomatic individual
Peripheral blood	59	55	1.1	149,678	0.033	—	<0.05
Lymph node	85	25	3.4		0.1	+	0.25
4. AIDS patient
Peripheral blood	8	91	0.1	398,994	0.1	—	<0.1
Lymph node	6	81	0.1		0.01	+	>1.0
5. AIDS patient**
Peripheral blood	13	80	0.2	55,573	0.0033	+	1.0 (81%)
Lymph node	ND	ND			0.01	ND	>0.5

ND, not determined. 

^*See Table 2 for CD4⁺ cell count and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention HIV classification. 

^†Expressed as HIV-1 RNA copies/ml, determined by RT–PCR. 

^‡Expressed by percentage as the least number of cells that released HIV as determined by infectious center assay. 

^§Virus isolation by the A culture method (20) was performed by PHA stimulation of the subject’s PBMC and culture for 1 week before coculture with PHA-stimulated PBMC from an HIV-seronegative individual. 

^¶Expressed as the lowest CD8⁺:CD4⁺ cell ratio at which 90% or greater suppression of HIV replication occurred in autologous peripheral blood CD4⁺ cells; <, indicates that this was the lowest CD8⁺:CD4⁺ cell ratio tested; >, indicates that no anti-HIV activity was detected at this highest CD8⁺:CD4⁺ cell ratio tested. 

^‖The plasma sample for HIV RNA load determination was taken from this subject 3 weeks prior to lymph node removal. 

^**Heterologous peripheral blood CD4⁺ cells were used to assay the anti-HIV activity of this patient’s CD8⁺ cells. The virus isolation was performed with PBMC from the previous visit to our laboratory, 3 months prior to removal of the lymph node.