Leitman, EllenPalmer, Christine D.Buus, SørenChen, FabianRiddell, LynnSims, StuartKlenerman, PaulSáez-Cirión, AsierWalker, BruceHess, Paul R.Altfeld, MarcusMatthews, Philippa C.Goulder, Philip J. R.2017-12-062017Leitman, E. M., C. D. Palmer, S. Buus, F. Chen, L. Riddell, S. Sims, P. Klenerman, et al. 2017. “Saporin-conjugated tetramers identify efficacious anti-HIV CD8+ T-cell specificities.” PLoS ONE 12 (10): e0184496. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184496. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184496.http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:34492405Antigen-specific T-cells are highly variable, spanning potent antiviral efficacy and damaging auto-reactivity. In virus infections, identifying the most efficacious responses is critical to vaccine design. However, current methods depend on indirect measures or on ex vivo expanded CTL clones. We here describe a novel application of cytotoxic saporin-conjugated tetramers to kill antigen-specific T-cells without significant off-target effects. The relative efficacy of distinct antiviral CD8+ T-cell specificity can be directly assessed via antigen-specific CD8+ T-cell depletion. The utility of these reagents is demonstrated here in identifying the CD8+ T-cell specificity most effective in preventing HIV progression in HIV-infected HLA-B*27-positive immune controllers.en-USBiology and Life SciencesCell BiologyCellular TypesAnimal CellsBlood CellsWhite Blood CellsT CellsImmune CellsImmunologyMedicine and Health SciencesBiology and life sciencesCell biologyCellular typesAnimal cellsBlood cellsWhite blood cellsT cellsCytotoxic T cellsImmune cellsMedicine and health sciencesSpecimen Preparation and TreatmentStainingCell StainingMicrobiologyMedical MicrobiologyMicrobial PathogensViral PathogensImmunodeficiency VirusesHIVPathology and Laboratory MedicinePathogensOrganismsVirusesRNA virusesRetrovirusesLentivirusVirologyViral ReplicationImmunologic TechniquesImmunoassaysEnzyme-Linked ImmunoassaysViral Transmission and InfectionViral LoadCell PhysiologyCell BindingJournal Article2017-12-0610.1371/journal.pone.0184496