CXCR4-Using HIV Strains Predominate in Naive and Central Memory CD4 + T Cells in People Living with HIV on Antiretroviral Therapy: Implications for How Latency Is Established and Maintained

Abstract

In people living with HIV (PLWH) on suppressive ART, latent HIV can be found in a diverse range of CD4 + T cells, including quiescent naive and central memory cells that are typically difficult to infect in vitro . It is currently unclear how latency is established in these cells in vivo . We show that in CD4 + T cells from PLWH on suppressive ART, the use of the coreceptor CXCR4 was prevalent among viruses amplified from naive and central memory CD4 + T cells. Furthermore, we found that expanded numbers of identical viral sequences were most common in the effector memory population, and these identical sequences were also found in multiple different CD4 + T cell subsets. Our results help to shed light on how a range of CD4 + T cell subsets come to harbor HIV DNA, which is one of the major barriers to eradicating the virus from PLWH.