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HIV enters deep sleep in people who naturally control the virus

In a few people living with HIV, the virus remains under control without antiretroviral therapy. It emerges that, in these people, the viral DNA that is integrated into the host genome is in a deeply transcriptionally repressed state.
  1. Nicolas Chomont

    1. Nicolas Chomont is at the CHUM Research Centre, Montreal H2X 0A9, Quebec, Canada, and in the Department of Microbiology, Infectiology and Immunology, Université de Montréal.

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Our ability to keep HIV under control has been revolutionized by antiretroviral therapy (ART). But ART is not a cure — the HIV genome can integrate into host DNA and hide out in cells in a silent form, even after decades of successful therapy1–3. ART must be continued throughout life, to prevent the virus from rebounding from these viral reservoirs. Could ways to prevent this viral rebound be found by studying the small proportion (less than 0.5%) of people living with HIV who can control viral replication without the need for ART? Writing in Nature, Jiang et al.4 compared the viral reservoirs of these individuals, known as elite controllers, with those of people who are prescribed ART. Their findings suggest that elite control is associated with a small reservoir from which HIV is unlikely to be reactivated.

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Nature 585, 190-191 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02438-7

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