We further confirmed our and others previous observations16,19,24 indicating a strong positive correlation between the frequency of persistently infected CD4+ T cells (as measured by integrated HIV DNA) and PD-1 expression in CD4+ T cells during ART (r = 0.42, p < 0.0001, Supplementary Fig. 3a) as well as the preferential infection of PD-1+ TCM and TTM cells during ART by measuring integrated HIV DNA (median fold-enrichment: 1.7, p = 0.01 and 1.6, p = 0.04, respectively, Supplementary Fig. 3b). The gene discussed is PDCD1; the disease is infection.