Toward a Functional Cure for HIV-1 Infection: The Block and Lock Therapeutic Approach

The persistence of latent, replication-competent HIV-1 proviruses in resting CD4+ T cells, and other cellular reservoirs, represents a major barrier to cure. This reservoir is impervious the immune system antiretroviral therapy, but has potential produce infectious rebound virus if therapy interrupted. There are multiple ongoing efforts identify and/or develop novel therapeutic strategies eliminate or silence this latent infection. One these termed “block lock”. “block” refers agent’s capacity inhibit (or “block”) transcription proviruses, while “lock” its induce permanent silencing typically via repressive epigenetic modifications. lock” approach elicits functional, rather than sterilizing, cure for review article focuses on approaches (i.e., small molecules, nucleic acids recombinant proteins) that have been identified block and, some cases, lock state. We also touch critical research needs be accomplished advance into humans.