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Updated: May 1, 2026

Peptide-based Identification of Functional Motifs and their Binding Partners
Published on: June 30, 2013
Tumor necrosis factor α is associated with viral control and early disease progression in patients with HIV type 1
Sagar A Vaidya1, Christian Korner2, Michael N Sirignano2
1Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, Cambridge Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital.
Abstract:
Inflammation in early human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) disease progression is not well characterized. Ninety patients with untreated primary HIV-1 infection were studied to determine associations of inflammatory proteins with early disease progression. High plasma tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) levels (≥8.5 pg/mL) were significantly associated with an increased viral load set point and shorter times to reaching a CD4(+) T-cell count of <500 cells/mm(3) and initiating antiretroviral therapy. The increased risk of reaching a CD4(+) T-cell count of <500 cells/mm(3) in the group with high TNF-α levels was driven by viral load but was independent of concurrent CD4(+) T-cell count. Thus, TNF-α appears to be an important mediator of inflammation in patients with poor viral control and early HIV-1 disease progression.
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