Fig. 3

Quantification of total and unintegrated HIV DNA in blood samples from HIV-1 infected patients. Levels of a total HIV DNA, b unintegrated HIV DNA and c 2-LTR circles were measured in Off-ART patients (n = 12), viremic (n = 14) and aviremic (n = 29) On-ART patients, and untreated infected controller patients (HIC, n = 20). Each DNA sample was tested using three 0.5-μg replicates and three (or up to five) 1.0-μg replicates for a total of up to 6.5 µg (~ 10⁶ WBC). The number of copies was reported per µg of cellular DNA (left) and per 10⁴ CD4+ (right) converting the value relative to 1 µg of cellular DNA for the CD4+ count and the proportion of CD4+ T cells in each subject. Lines represent the median and 25th to 75th percentiles. The Kruskal–Wallis test and Dunn’s multiple comparison test were used for comparisons, only p < 0.05 are reported; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. d Correlations between the levels of total HIV DNA, unintegrated HIV DNA and 2-LTR circles expressed as copy number per µg of cellular DNA or per 10⁴ CD4+ T cells in the four different groups of HIV-1 patients. Correlations were assessed by Spearman’s rank-correlation coefficient. The correlation coefficients and p-values are shown in each plot