Recognition of conserved regions by CTL responses in persons with chronic HIV-1 infection.

A panel of 54 persons (from the Los Angeles area) with chronic HIV-1 infection and not receiving antiretroviral treatment was screened for HIV-1-specific CTL responses by IFN-γ ELISpot assays using overlapping peptides spanning each protein. Gag-specific responses were screened using peptides based on clade B consensus and strain DU422 sequences. Env-specific responses were screened using peptides based on clade B consensus or strain MN sequences. Nef-specific responses were screened using peptides based on clade B consensus sequence. The presence or absence of detectable viremia is indicated in the second column; these individuals were biased towards slow progressors due to recruitment selection for being untreated. Recognized peptides that fall entirely within each conserved region are indicated by NIH AIDS Reagent Repository catalog number. The minimal number of epitopes recognized by each person is listed in the last column (assuming that consecutive overlapping peptides contain a single epitope).