In addition, furthering the theory that impaired intestinal IL-17 producing CD4+ T-cell functionality is mechanistically linked to immune activation and disease progression, higher functional scores of Th17 cells (p = 0.0465, r = -0.7144; S7 Fig) and Th17/Th22 T-cells (p = 0.0228, r = -0.7786; Fig 7H) during late-ART treatment negatively correlated with levels of sCD163, whose expansion has been linked to faster AIDS progression and residual inflammation [51,52]. This evidence concerns the gene CD163 and AIDS.