Moving Toward a Functional Cure for HIV-1

Despite the recent success of suppressing human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) replication in the peripheral blood with antiretroviral therapy, elimination of the provirus from infected cells remains challenging because the virus can integrate into the host genome and become a latent proviral reservoir. The removal of these latent viral reservoirs from tissue containing infected resting memory CD4 + T cells remains a major barrier to developing a cure for HIV-1. Several novel strategies have recently been developed for curing HIV infection. These include stem cell transplantation with CCR5-Δ32 mutated cells, initial antiretroviral treatment in the very early stage of HIV infection, gene editing to excise the HIV genome or generate CCR5-mutated HIV-1-resistant cells, “shock-and-kill” to reactivate latent HIV using latency reversal agents combined with enhanced immune clearance methods, and an emerging “block-and-lock” strategy to reactivate latent HIV using latency reversal agents combined with enhanced immune clearance methods. However, the high risks and limitations to scale-up in clinics, as well as poor performance in clinical trials, have hampered these efforts. This review aims to describe the present efforts that are being made to combat HIV latency, and critically discuss the limitations and future of the cure for HIV-1.