About the Authors

Matteo Surdo

Contributed equally to this work with: Matteo Surdo, Emanuela Balestra

Affiliation Department of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Emanuela Balestra

Contributed equally to this work with: Matteo Surdo, Emanuela Balestra

Affiliation Department of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Patrizia Saccomandi

Affiliation Department of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Fabiola Di Santo

Affiliation Department of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Marco Montano

Affiliation Clinical Infectious Diseases, Tor Vergata University (PTV), Rome, Italy

Domenico Di Carlo

Affiliation Department of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Loredana Sarmati

Affiliation Clinical Infectious Diseases, Tor Vergata University (PTV), Rome, Italy

Stefano Aquaro

Affiliation Department of Pharmaco-Biology, University of Calabria, Rende (CS), Italy, 4INMI “L. Spallanzani”, Rome, Italy

Massimo Andreoni

Affiliation Clinical Infectious Diseases, Tor Vergata University (PTV), Rome, Italy

Valentina Svicher

Affiliation Department of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Carlo Federico Perno

Cf.perno@uniroma2.it

Affiliation Department of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Francesca Ceccherini-Silberstein

Affiliation Department of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Competing Interests

CF Perno have received funds for attending symposia, speaking, organizing educational activities, grant research support, consultancy and advisory board membership, from Abbott, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Gilead, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Janssen Cilag, Pfizer, Tibotec, Roche, and ViiV. F Ceccherini-Silberstein has received funds for attending symposia, speaking and organizing educational activities from Abbott, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Janssen Cilag, and ViiV. V Svicher has received funds for attending symposia, speaking and organizing educational activities from ViiV. The other authors declare that no competing interests exist. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MS EB CFP. Performed the experiments: MS EB PS FDS MM. Analyzed the data: MS EB DDC SA VS CFP FCS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: LS MA. Wrote the paper: MS EB SA VS CFP FCS. Statistical Analysis: MS DDC.