Compounds producing an effective combinatorial regimen for disruption of HIV-1 latency.

Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has improved the outlook for the HIV epidemic, but does not provide a cure. The proposed "shock-and-kill" strategy is directed at inducing latent HIV reservoirs, which may then be purged via boosted immune response or targeting infected cells. We describe five novel compounds that are capable of reversing HIV latency without affecting the general T-cell activation state. The new compounds exhibit synergy for reactivation of latent provirus with other latency-reversing agents (LRAs), in particular ingenol-3-angelate/PEP005. One compound, designated PH02, was efficient at reactivating viral transcription in several cell lines bearing reporter HIV-1 at different integration sites. Furthermore, it was capable of reversing latency in resting CD4