A novel immunodominant CD8+ T cell response restricted by a common HLA-C allele targets a conserved region of Gag HIV-1 clade CRF01_AE infected Thais.

Background: CD8+ T cell responses play an important role in the control of HIV-1. The extensive sequence diversity of HIV-1 represents a critical hurdle to developing an effective HIV-1 vaccine, and it is likely that regional-specific vaccine strains will be required to overcome the diversity of the different HIV-1 clades distributed world-wide. Unfortunately, little is known about the CD8+ T cell responses against CRF01_AE, which is responsible for the majority of infections in Southeast Asia.