FIG. 4.

HIV-suppressing CD8⁺ cells are increased in frequency among cells that exhibit biased T cell receptor repertoires. T cell receptor diversity profiling was performed on CD45RA⁺ CD27⁺ CD28⁺ (naïve) (A), CD45RA⁻ CD27⁺ CD28⁻ (differentiated) (B), and bulk CD8⁺ (C) cells that had been freshly isolated from the blood of an HIV-infected individual. Elevated CNAR activity was exhibited by the CD45RA⁻ CD27⁺ CD28⁻ CD8⁺ cells in parallel assays. Shown are the resulting spectratypes for 16 of the 24 TCRVβ families evaluated. Within each TCRVβ family, peaks are separated by 3 nucleotides (1 amino acid). Similar results were observed among 3 HIV-infected individuals.