Figure 3. Epitope specificity of preimmunization and postvaccination Env-reactive CD4⁺ T cells.

Postvaccination CD4⁺ T cell responses were mapped and quantified at V7 using ex vivo and cultured IFN-γ ELISpot assays. (A) Heatmaps showing the combined epitope mapping data from all volunteers at V7 (left) alongside a comparison with the epitope mapping data from all 20 volunteers at V2 (right). Ex vivo results are shown if both ex vivo and cultured data were available. Mean values are shown. SFU, spot-forming unit. (B) Identification of matching epitope-specific responses in the preimmunization and postvaccination repertoires of 4 donors immunized with ConS DNA. The scale for ex vivo and cultured data is shown on the left y axis, and the scale for naive (yellow) or memory (orange) precursor frequencies is shown on the right y axis. Mean ± SEM.