FIG 3.

Strength and polyfunctionality of the CD8⁺ T cell response. (A) Estimated functionality profile of the CD8⁺ T cell response for HIV progressors in terms of multifunctionality of single cells based on the measured frequency of individual effector functions, with an f_e value of 0.94, an f_k value of 0.59, and an f_r value of 0.62. (B) Relationship between the strength of the CD8⁺ T cell response and the multifunctional profile assuming maximal diversity of the response; i.e., f_e = f_k = f_r. (C) Relationship of the strength and the polyfunctionality of the CD8⁺ T cell response for each patient described previously (12) shown exemplarily for the gag epitope considering three (CD107a, IFN-γ, and MIP-1β) of the five measured effector functions. (D) For each patient described previously (12), the frequency of CD8⁺ T cells expressing two of the three functions indicated by CD107a, IFN-γ, and MIP-1β (f_ab) is plotted against the total frequencies of CD8⁺ T cells expressing the corresponding specific function, i.e., f_a and f_b. The gray shaded background indicates the profile of the expected frequency of combined expression under the assumption that the particular effector functions are expressed independently (E[f_ab] = f_a × f_b). Observations are shown exemplarily for the gag epitope.