Fig. 5

In coculture with monocytes, Treg cells suppress IL-6 production following stimulation with poly-ICLC. In a, representative plots of IL-6 forming monocytes are shown for both HIV⁺ and HIV^- participants. Monocytes stimulation with poly-ICLC resulted into increased IL-6 production relative to unstimulated monocytes. Upon co-culture with autologous Treg cells, there was a significant reduction in IL-6 production indicating the inhibitory effect of Treg cells on poly-ICLC stimulated monocytes. The SI and IS correlated positively with helper CD4⁺ T cell counts (r = 0.40, P = 0.008 and r = 0.61, p = 0.0001, respectively for the SI and IS; b, c, g, f) and negatively with HIV-1 plasmatic viral loads (r = - 0.52, P = 0.031 and r = - 0.46, p = 0.0089, respectively for the SI and IS; d, e, h, i) demonstrating a strong correlation between SI and IS (r = 0.40, p = 0.0093; j). Horizontal bars represent the median values that were compared using the Kruskal Wallis test followed by Dunn’s multiple comparisons post-test. Correlation coefficients and their significance were calculated using the Spearman test. The letters on horizontal bars identify which groups are significantly different from each other. The same letter implies there is no significant difference between the compared groups, while different letters indicate a significant difference between them