The Mechanism of HIV-1 Latency and Therapeutic Implication

The latency of resting HIV-1 in CD4+ T cells is the obstacle to complete destruction of the virus in patients that have been given highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). This latency occurs early during acute infection but remains silent in the host cells; however it is still capable of making infectious proviruses if antiviral therapy is stopped. The goal of HAART therapy is to reduce the replication levels of HIV-1 to undetectable levels in serum of infected individuals. HIV-1 therapy involves the use of multiple drugs because of the ability of the virus to easily acquire drug resistance to an inhibitor. Resistance develops due to the diversity of HIV-1 genome within several individuals. Gene therapy approaches have been shown to be somewhat safer but have not been proven yet in human models. The process of HIV-1 latency is multifactorial and involves several molecular pathways which are still being studied. This study reviews HIV-1 latency as well as its therapeutic implication.