Progressively stringent filtering criteria revealed a similar abundance of patient circRNA pre- and post-ART. Each dot color represents one patient (n = 19) per treatment cohort. Bolstered stringency criteria resulted in the~85% reduction in the number of circRNA. Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 stringency filters. Tier 1 criteria: back-splicing junction count (BSJ) > 1, total number of circRNAs identified across pre-ART was 7053 and 7411 in the post-ART cohort. Tier 2 criteria: BSJ > 3, ratio between circular and linear junction counts (r) > 0.03. A total of 5819 circRNAs in the pre-ART and 5973 circRNAs in the post-ART patients. Tier 3 criteria: BSJ > 20, r > 0.03. A total of 1014 in pre-ART and 876 circRNAs in post-ART patients.