Abstract
A Review of the Advances in the Mechanisms used to Mitigate/Reverse HIV Latency
Highlights
Once it enters the human body, HIV inserts its genetic material into the DNA of the host immune cells
While drug therapy allows people living with HIV to lead a relatively normal life, it is not a cure as this treatment is insufficient to clear persistent infection, it does not lead to the full eradication of infection and the virus continues to persist within a latent reservoir in resting memory CD4+ T cells and macrophages
The virus can hide in this latent reservoir in infected cells for a long time, even for several decades, without their genetic code being read to make protein or without any viral protein being expressed, and without becoming active and causing any noticeable symptoms, eluding the immune system's response and antiviral treatments
Summary
Once it enters the human body, HIV inserts its genetic material into the DNA of the host immune cells. HIV infected patients must stay on the drugs for life because if the people are taken off their antiretroviral therapies or if treatment fails, the virus hiding in the dormant host cells becomes reactivated and massively proliferates with the cell beginning to produce HIV again, leading to disease progression. Therapeutic strategies to reactivate latent HIV-infected cells so as to eradicate the viral reservoir have so far remained elusive, because candidate drugs that reawaken the virus (latency reversing agents), appear to lack sufficient potency or could trigger massive immune system activation which itself could be deadly. Other approaches towards tackling HIV latency include biological control of HIV reservoirs by using other biological agents such as other viruses; immunotherapy as well as seeking a better understanding of the science of latency
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