HIV’s Adaptation to the Human Immune System

Several reports have recently illustrated HIV’ssurprising capabilities of adaptation to the humanimmune system. The group of George Pavlakishas just identified natural killer cells (NK cells) as anew hideout for HIV (Valentin, et al. Proc Natl AcadSci USA 2002;99:7015-20), in addition to latentlyinfected T-cells. HIV-1 DNA remains in NK cells,even after two years of aggressive treatment withcombinations of three antiretroviral drugs and viruscould be cultured from purified NK cells. Infectionof NK cells may contribute to defects in innateimmunity previously reported in AIDS patients.Strategies aimed at targeting latently infected Tcellsmay not affect the virus hiding in NK cells.