The Replication-Competent HIV-1 Latent Reservoir is Primarily Established Near the Time of Therapy Initiation

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 when HIV variants circulating in the blood preceding antiretroviral treatment initiation enter the long-lived latent viral reservoir. In nine women from Durban, South Africa, replication-competent viruses induced from the latent reservoir were compared to viruses circulating in blood during the course of pre-treatment infection using next-generation sequencing and phylogenetics.