Latently infected T lymphocytes are an important barrier toward eliminating a persistent HIV infection. Here we describe an HIV-based recombinant fluorescent-lentivirus referred to as “rfl-HIV” that enables to analyze sense and antisense transcription by means of fluorescence reporter genes. This model virus exhibited similar transcriptional and functional properties of the antisense transcript as observed with a wild type HIV, and largely facilitated the generation of latently-infected T cells clones. We show that latently-infected cells can be divided into two types, those with and those without antisense transcription. Upon addition of latency reversal agents, only the cells that lack antisense transcripts are readily reactivated to transcribe HIV. Thus, antisense transcripts may exhibit a dominant suppressor activity and can lock an integrated provirus into a non-reactivatable state. These findings could have important implications for the development of strategies to eradicate HIV from infected individuals.

This work was supported by grants from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS KAKENHI #15H06877 for MK-I, #JP17K08800 for KT), ViiV Healthcare Japan Research Grant 2015 (MK-I), Grants-in-Aid from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (H24-AIDS-008 to YT-Y) and Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED #JP17fk0410305h0103 to YT-Y and #JP18fk0410003 to KT). MK-I received Fellowships from Japan Foundation for AIDS Prevention and JSPS Oversea Research Fellow Program. AM and JM were supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness and FEDER grant no. SAF2016-75505-R (AEI/MINEICO/FEDER, UE) and through the “María de Maeztu” Program for Units of Excellence in R&D (MDM-2014-0370).