Differentiation status and phenotype of HIV-specific CD8+ T cells in people during acute and chronic HIV infection before ART initiation. (a) Frequencies of naïve-like (Tna), stem cell memory (Tscm), central memory (Tcm), transitional memory (Ttm), CD45RA+ transitional memory (RA+ Ttm), effector memory (Tem), and terminally differentiated cells (Ttd) in HIV/EBV-specific CD8+ T cells prior to ART initiation in CHI and AHI. Chi-square permutation test was used to compare the overall frequency distribution of the CD8+ T cell subsets among the groups. (b-e) Percentage of Ki-67+Bcl-2low cells (b) and expression of T-bet (c), TOX (d), and PD-1 (e) on HIV/EBV-specific CD8+ T cells. Differences between groups were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis test. *P< 0.05; **P< 0.01; ****P< 0.0001.