Early highly active antiretroviral therapy for acute HIV-1 infection preserves immune function of CD8⁺ and CD4⁺ T lymphocytes

The immune response during and after HIV infection. Thawed, uncultured PBL of SC2 (A), SC9 (B), SC19 (C), SC10 (D), SC12 (E), SC15 (F), SC11 (G), and SC18 (H) were studied. For viral load (●), data points on the baseline were below the limit of detection of the assay (<400 copies per ml). PBL were stained with tetramers specific for the HLA B8-restricted epitope FLK (□). Median values are shown and expressed as percentage of total CD8⁺ T cells. Initiation and duration of HAART is indicated by the black bar on top of the upper panel. IFN-γ-ELISPOT analysis is shown in the lower panels and the time of analysis is indicated by the arrows pointing to the time axis (x axis). Specific IFN-γ release indicated the number of spots induced by peptide stimulation (peptides are indicated at the x axis of the ELISPOT panels) divided by the number of spots observed without antigen stimulation. In each patient, 9–20 peptides were used to screen CD8⁺ T cell responses in each sample, but only those peptides that stimulated a response at some point in the study are shown. Consistently negative responses are not plotted.