Role of Transmitted Gag CTL Polymorphisms in Defining Replicative Capacity and Early HIV-1 Pathogenesis
Figure 5
The balance of fitness increasing and decreasing HLA-associated polymorphisms strongly correlates with RC.
(A) The total number of HLA-associated polymorphisms positively correlates with RC. HLA-associated polymorphisms were defined as non-consensus residues at any amino acid position known to have polymorphisms statistically linked to HLA-I alleles. (B) RC of Gag-MJ4 chimeras is highly correlated to the summed polymorphism score in Gag. Each amino acid polymorphism was given a score of 1 (fitness increasing) or −1 (fitness decreasing). Summed polymorphism scores were generated by summing these scores for each Gag protein. Trend lines were generated using linear regression analysis, and are shown in order to facilitate visualization of correlations.