The kinetics of RhCMV-specific T cell responses and RhCMV viral load in breast milk.

Maternal RhCMV-specific immunodominant T cell responses (IE1, IE2, or pp65) in breast milk were measured by cultured IFNγ ELISpot (grey line), using the immunodominant peptide pool for each dam (monkeys 337 and 222: pp65; monkeys 196 and 187: IE-1; monkey 205: IE-2). Breast milk virus load (green line) was measured by qPCR, and the median and range of the positive qPCR replicates are indicated when 2 or more replicates were positive. T cell responses were considered positive if they were greater than twice the background and 50 SFU/10⁶ cells (dotted line).