Major influence of CD4 count at the initiation of cART on viral and immunological reservoir constitution in HIV-1 infected patients

Background A persistent immune activation is observed in gut during HIV-1 infection, which is not completely reversed by a combined antiretroviral therapy (cART). The impact of the time of cART initiation may highly influence the size of the viral reservoir and the ratio of CD4+/CD8+ T cells in the gut. In this study, we analyzed the characteristics of HIV rectal reservoir of long-term treated patients, regarding their blood CD4+ T cells count at the time of cART initiation.