Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has rendered HIV-1 infection a treatable illness; however, ART is not curative owing to the persistence of replication-competent, latent proviruses in long-lived resting T cells. Strategies that target these latently infected cells and allow immune recognition and clearance of this reservoir will be necessary to eradicate HIV-1 in infected individuals. This review describes current pharmacologic approaches to reactivate the latent reservoir so that infected cells can be recognized and targeted, with the ultimate goal of achieving an HIV-1 cure.
Keywords: HIV-1 reservoir; NF-κB; SMAC; STAT5; benzotriazole; disulfiram; ingenol; latency reversal agents; protein kinase C; shock and kill; viral latency.