{"doi":"10.1093/ofid/ofaa047","title":"Oral Cytokine Levels Are More Linked to Levels of Plasma and Oral HIV-1 RNA Than to CD4+ T-Cell Counts in People With HIV","abstract":"Abstract Background We determined the levels of 11 soluble immune mediators in oral washings of AIDS Clinical Trials Group A5254 participants with varying degrees of plasma viremia and CD4 T-cell counts to characterize the mucosal immune response at different stages of HIV-1 infection. Methods A5254 was a multicenter, cross-sectional study in people with HIV (PWH) recruited into 4 strata based on CD4 count and levels of plasma viremia: stratum (St) A: CD4 ≤200 cells/mm3, HIV-1 RNA (viral load [VL]) >1000 cps/mL; St B: CD4 ≤200, VL ≤1000; St C: CD4 >200, VL >1000; St D: CD4 >200, VL ≤1000. Oral/throat washings were obtained from all participants. Soluble markers were tested in oral/throat washings using a multibead fluorescent platform and were compared across strata. Linear regression was used to determine the associations between cytokines and HIV-1 in plasma and oral fluid. Results St A participants had higher levels of interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, IL-17, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), and interferon gamma (IFNγ) compared with St B and D (P = .02; P < .0001) but were not different from St C. IL-8, IL-10, and IL-12 were elevated in St A compared with the other 3 strata (P = .046; P < .0001). Linear regression demonstrated that oral HIV-1 levels were associated with IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, and TNFα production (R > .40; P < .001) when controlling for CD4 count and opportunistic infections. Conclusions Our results show that high levels of oral HIV-1, rather than low CD4 counts, were linked to the production of oral immune mediators. Participants with AIDS and uncontrolled viremia demonstrated higher levels of pro- and anti-inflammatory soluble immune mediators compared with participants with lower HIV-1 RNA. The interplay of HIV-1 and these immune mediators could be important in the oral health of PWH.","journal":"Open Forum Infectious Diseases","year":2020,"id":111624,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9212,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":529884,"name":"Zachary York","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":334149,"name":"Chengli Shen","orcid":"0000-0003-4731-2872","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":529098,"name":"Caroline H. Shiboski","orcid":"0000-0002-2289-3781","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":529885,"name":"Jennifer Cyriaque-Webster","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":529099,"name":"Janet McLaughlin","orcid":"0009-0005-9499-656X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":386406,"name":"Luann Borowski","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":529100,"name":"Huichao Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-3012-6531","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":12096,"name":"Judith A. Aberg","orcid":"0000-0001-8162-0284","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":295812,"name":"Dirk P. Dittmer","orcid":"0000-0003-4968-5656","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":376946,"name":"Mahmoud A. Ghannoum","orcid":"0000-0002-8833-7323","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":259560,"name":"Charles R. Rinaldo","orcid":"0000-0002-9194-3164","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":259559,"name":"Bernard Macatangay","orcid":"0000-0002-0405-0991","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":529097,"name":"Joseph M. Rocco","orcid":"0000-0003-4307-4934","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":22,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:13:05.597252Z","pmid":"32158775","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}