Their responses to vaccination were similar if not higher in magnitude to those enrolled in the Step trial. Details of the T cell and antibody responses to the vaccine among these subjects have been described. Moreover, the subjects we analyzed were enrolled from many US study sites in which the ensuing Step trial was conducted. The incidence of HIV-1 acquisition in Step was highest in the U.S. As such, the epitope mapping data of these samples from the earlier Phase I trial are of direct relevance to immune responses seen in Step. Deconvolution of the individual 9-mer peptide response within the positive Niltubacin customer reviews minipools was completed for 228 minipools where response magnitude and sample supply were sufficient. Individual 9-mer responses were undetectable or below the positivity criteria in 61 of the deconvoluted minipools. Responses to a single 9-mer epitope per minipool were detected from 84% of the minipools. Responses to two, or rarely three, 9-mer epitopes were detected from the remaining 16% of minipools, but most were offset by just 1 or 2 amino acids with one dominant response; thus, these were likely responses to the same epitope. A total of 105 distinct epitopes were detected from the positive minipools, with 30, 20, and 55 in Gag, Nef, and Pol, respectively. Vaccinated subjects with similar HLA types exhibited markedly different epitope-specific responses. Vemurafenib Despite individual variability in the epitope specificity of the vaccine induced T cell response, the location of the epitope responses after vaccination along the protein sequence tracked well with the distribution of responses reported in the literature after natural infection. There was a very strong correlation between the number of epitopes that span each position in the protein among the vaccinees and the reported human HIV epitopes in the Los Alamos database. This consistency suggests that the localization of responses to the vaccine follows that of initial infection, a desirable vaccine characteristic as the vaccine elicited responses targeted to epitopes that are processed and presented in infected human subjects. We next performed a series of analyses to evaluate the likelihood vaccinations would elicit responses to epitopes likely to be present in circulating strains of HIV-1, a concept termed ����coverage.����