Abstract
Opioid use may affect the HIV-1 reservoir and its reversal from latency. We studied 47 virally suppressed people with HIV (PWH) and observed that lower concentration of HIV-1 latency reversal agents (LRAs), used with small molecules that did not reverse latency, synergistically increased the magnitude of HIV-1 reactivation ex vivo, regardless of opioid use. This LRA boosting, which combined a second mitochondria-derived activator of caspases mimetic or low-dose PKC agonist with histone deacetylase inhibitors, generated more unspliced HIV-1 transcription than PMA with ionomycin (PMAi), the maximal known HIV-1 reactivator. LRA boosting associated with greater histone acetylation, modulated surface activation-induced markers, and altered T cell production of TNF-α, IL-2, and IFN-γ. HIV-1 reservoirs in PWH contained unspliced and polyadenylated virus mRNA, the ratios of which were greater in resting than total CD4+ T cells and corrected to 1:1 with PMAi exposure. We characterized treated suppressed HIV-1 infection as a period of inefficient, not absent, virus transcription. Multiply spliced HIV-1 transcripts and virion production did not consistently increase with LRA boosting, suggesting the presence of a persistent posttranscriptional block. LRA boosting can be leveraged to probe mechanisms of an effective cellular HIV-1 latency reversal program.