Comparative Analysis of Measures of Viral Reservoirs in HIV-1 Eradication Studies

HIV-1 reservoirs preclude virus eradication in patients receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). The best characterized reservoir is a small, difficult-to-quantify pool of resting memory CD4(+) T cells carrying latent but replication-competent viral genomes. Because strategies targeting this latent reservoir are now being tested in clinical trials, well-validated high-throughput assays that quantify this reservoir are urgently needed. Here we compare eleven different approaches for quantitating persistent HIV-1 in 30 patients on HAART, using the original viral outgrowth assay for resting CD4(+) T cells carrying inducible, replication-competent viral genomes as a standard for comparison.…

• HH
  Howard Hughes Medical Institute
• UD
  U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

  Awards: IK2 CX000520-01, IK2 CX000520
• AT
  amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research
• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Awards: 43222, AI74621, AI096113, 1U19AI096109, RR024131, AI69432, AI306214
• UO
  University of California, San Francisco
• NI
  National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

  Award: RR024131
• CF
  Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, University of California, San Francisco

  Award: P30 MH62246