No Longer Room for Valproic Acid as Anti-HIV Therapy

Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) canreduce and maintain plasma HIV RNA levels belowthe limit of detection (< 50 copies/ml) in most adherentpatients. Despite its benefits, antiretroviral therapycannot eliminate HIV infection since there is anearly establishment of a latent HIV reservoir, mainlyconstituted by a pool of “restingâ€? CD4+ T-cells, followingacute infection. Hypothetically, the use ofcompounds that selectively induce the expressionof quiescent proviral genomes might allow reducingthe size or even eliminating the latent HIV reservoirin patients with long-term suppression of viremia.The histone deacetylase (HDAC) is a critical enzymeinvolved in the regulation of HIV latency.