Temporal dynamics of reservoir formation are not strongly influenced by replication competency or cellular tropism of HIV-1 proviruses

HIV antiretroviral treatment is by necessity life-long as the virus persists in a highly stable, latent form within the body for many years. This study aims to determine whether the temporal dynamics of reservoir formation is influenced by expression potential or cellular tropism. In eighteen women from Durban South Africa, largely defective proviral DNA was extracted from PBMC derived on average after five years of suppressive ART. In ten of these women replication-competent viruses induced from the latent reservoir were also derived. Both proviral DNA and replication-competent viral sequences were compared to viruses circulating in blood during the course of pre-treatment infection using next-generation sequencing and phylogenetics.