HIV: new therapeutic strategies

To eliminate HIV from the body, at a minimum, infected, quiescent T cells would need to be forced to produce viral proteins. This would cause the destruction of these cells, which would be attacked by drugs that block the spread of the virus from one cell to another. New data suggest that an intensification of the control of viral replication, obtained by hitting new cellular or HIV targets, would also be useful. The new therapeutic targets for the drugs are: the viral infectivity factor (VIF); lenticular epithelium-derived growth factor (LEDGF); the DNA and protein complex that makes up the chromosomes (chromatin) and the viral protein U (VPU). The drugs on the market target the viral envelope protein and the CCR5 receptor of T cells, to block the entry of the virus into the cells, and inhibit some HIV enzymes: reverse transcriptase; integrase and protease, to stop, respectively, the transcription of the HIV genome , its insertion into cellular DNA and the maturation of HIV proteins.