Susceptibility to spontaneous apoptosis of HIV- and CMV-specific CD8 T cells in primary infection. (A) Dot plots for annexin-V staining of HIV-specific CD8 T cells and total CD8 T cells for subject AEI 041 in primary and chronic infection. (B) Total CD8 T cells have a significantly higher percentage of annexin-V⁺ cells in primary infection compared with chronic infection. (C) Percentage of annexin-V⁺ tetramer⁺ cells for HIV- and CMV-specific CD8 T cells (diamonds and circles, respectively) in primary and chronic HIV infection (filled and open symbols, respectively). HIV-specific CD8 T cells in primary infection (HIV P) express higher levels of annexin-V compared with HIV-specific CD8 T cells in chronic infection (HIV C) or CMV-specific CD8 T cells in primary or chronic infection (CMV P and CMV C, respectively). (D) Heatmaps of genes significantly modulated between HIV-specific CD8 T cells in primary infection (pink) and HIV- and CMV-specific CD8 T cells in chronic infection (blue and green, respectively) in pathways of mitochondrial function and oxidative stress. Color scale represents the z-score of the mean expression value of each group for the genes significantly modulated within the pathways. ***P < .0005. ns indicates not significant.