Fig 5. Targeting USP18 in PHI and CHI results in improved Mem maintenance in an AKT-dependent manner.

(A) Mem counts from PHI, CHI, and HIV^free following TcR activation every 7 days for 28 days with or without SF1670 (top), α-IFNAR or its respective isotype control (middle), or CRISPR/Cas9 mediated USP18 gene editing (bottom) treatments. Results are expressed as the average of six independent experiments ± SD in log₂ scale. (B) Half-lives were also determined for all study groups of subjects in the presence or absence of specific treatments. (C) Levels of AKT pS473 following TcR activation every 7 days for 28 days with or without SF1670 (top), α-IFNAR (middle), or CRISPR/Cas9 mediated USP18 gene editing (bottom) treatments. Representative histograms are also shown on the right side. (D,E) Correlations between the increases of cell counts and AKT pS473 levels after CRISPR/Cas9 mediated USP18 gene editing in Mem at 7 (D) and 14 (E) days of treatment (FC, fold change; n = 18). The error bars indicate standard deviations from the means. β, symbol used for paired t test (comparison between treated Mem and control). *, symbol used for Mann-Whitney test (comparison between study groups).