(A) Women with detectable cervical viral load (detection limit of 80 Anti-Mouse CD11a Antibody supplier PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25767191?dopt=Abstract RNA Anti-Mouse CD11b Antibody Cancer copies/ml) were ranked as PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25762780?dopt=Abstract shedders, while women with no detectable cervical viral load were ranked as nonshedders. Cellular and humoral immune responses against HIV have been detected at the cervix and in semen of both HIV exposed and uninfected (highly exposed but persistently seronegative [HEPS]) and HIV-infected Anti-Mouse CD209b Antibody In Vitro individuals (14, 15, 18, 34). (B) Women with plasma viral loads of 500 RNA copies/ml were ranked as high VL, while women with plasma viral loads of 500 RNA copies/ml were ranked as low VL. Each dot represents an individual‘s CD8 T-cell response magnitude (fold increase) to Gag peptides. Horizontal lines represent the median for each group. P values of 0.05 were considered significant, and the Mann-Whitney U test was applied to compare groups.HIV-positive and HIV-negative women (Fig. 3A). Both the frequency and the fold increase in HIV PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25762297?dopt=Abstract Gag peptide-specific CD8 responses were significantly higher in chronically HIVinfected women than in HIV-negative women (Fig. 3A, P 0.04 for IFN- to Gag [second panel in Fig. 3A], P 0.02 for in IFN- to Gag [Gag-unstim; third panel in Fig. 3A], and P 0.002 for the fold increase in IFN- responses to Gag [Gag/unstim; fourth panel in Fig. 3A]; t test). In HIV-infected women, the Gag-specific IFN- response frequency by CD8 T cells ranged from undetectable (0 above background; 25 of 51 participants) to 10.8 above background. A similar analysis in uninfected women showed that Gag-specific IFN- responses ranged from undetectable (20 of 24 participants) to 2.5 above background. No correlation between HIV-specific response magnitudes at the cervix and in blood. We observed no correlation between net percent IFN- response magnitudes (data not shown) or fold increase (Fig. 3B; R 0.03; P 0.8271; Spearman rank test) when we compared blood and cervical T-cell responses, indicating that an HIV-specific response in blood does not necessarily reflect a similar ex vivo response at the cervix. Impact of HIV immune responses at the cervix on HIV shedding at the genital mucosa. Cellular and humoral immune responses against HIV have been detected at the cervix and in semen of both HIV exposed and uninfected (highly exposed but persistently seronegative [HEPS]) and HIV-infected individuals (14, 15, 18, 34). It has therefore been suggested that such responses may be important correlates of protection against HIV locally. We thus investigated the relationship between mucosal HIV-specific CD8 T cells responses and HIV shedding at the genital tract (Fig. 4). We found no significant association between the presence and magnitude of cervical CD8 HIV-specific IFN- responses and cervical viral load(Fig. 4A), suggesting that the presence of local HIV-specific CD8 T-cell responses had no clear impact on HIV shedding. Similarly, we observed no association between the magnitude of Gag-specific HIV responses in blood and PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25813020?dopt=Abstract either systemic viral loads (.