Reduced and highly diverse peripheral HIV-1 reservoir in virally suppressed patients infected with non-B HIV-1 strains in Uganda

Table 1 Demographic, clinical and virological characteristics

Characteristic	JCRC—Uganda (n = 62)	SIU—USA (n = 50)	p value
Median age (IQR)^a	43 (33–50)	49 (40–57)	0.009
No. males (%)^b	23 (37)	42 (84)	<0.0001
Exposure risk factor (#)^c
Heterosexual	62	6
MSM	0	35	<0.0001
IVDU	0	5
MTCT	0	4
Median HIV-1 RNA (IQR)—c/ml^d	< 20 (20–20)	<20 (20–20)	0.36
Median CD4⁺ T cells (IQR) —cell/mm^3e	508 (399–757)	772 (594–981)	<0.0001
HIV–1 Subtype^f (#)	A (19), C (3), D (40)	B (50)	<0.0001
cART regimen —No. patients (mean, range number of drugs)^g
PI	25 (0.7, 0–2)	27 (1.4, 0–5)	0.011
NRTI	51 (1.7, 0–2)	50 (3.7, 2–7)
NNRTI	48 (0.8, 0–1)	35 (0.9, 0–3)
INSTI	14 (0.2, 0–1)	28 (0.7, 0–2)
EI	0 (0, 0–0)	3 (0.1, 0–1)

^aMedian age at the time of sampling; IQR, interquartile range
^bNumber and percentage of male patients
^cMost likely mode of HIV-1 transmission: heterosexual; MSM, men who have sex with men; IVDU, intravenous drug user; MTCT, mother-to-child transmission; n.d., not determined
^dMedian HIV-1 RNA plasma load and IQR at the time the blood sample was obtained
^eMedian CD4⁺ T-cell count (cells/mm³) and IQR at the time the blood sample was obtained
^fHIV-1 subtype based on phylogenetic analysis of patient-derived vpu sequences (see “Methods” section for details) and confirmed with both the DEEPGEN™ Software Tool Suite [51] and COMET HIV-1[52]
^gNumber of patients treated with combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), and mean number of antiretroviral drugs used per patient (PI protease inhibitors, NRTI nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, NNRTI non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, INSTI integrase strand transfer inhibitors; entry inhibitors)
P values based on Wilcoxon test (age), Fisher’s exact test (HIV-1 subtype and cART)

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