Alterations of redox and iron metabolism accompany development of HIV latency

Metabolic alterations, such as oxidative stress, are hallmarks of HIV-1 infection. However, their influenceon the development of viral latency, and thus on HIV-1 persistence during antiretroviral therapy (ART),have just begun to be explored. We analyzed omics profiles ofin-vitroandin-vivomodels of infection byHIV-1 and its simian homolog SIVmac. We found that cells survive retroviral replication by upregulatingantioxidant pathways and intertwined iron import pathways. These changes are associated withremodeling of the redox sensitive promyelocytic leukemia protein nuclear bodies (PML NBs), an importantconstituent of nuclear architecture and a marker of HIV-1 latency. We found that PML is depleted inproductively infected cells and restored by ART. Moreover, we identified intracellular iron as a key linkbetween oxidative stress and PML depletion, thus supporting iron metabolism modulators aspharmacological tools to impair latency establishment.