Probabilistic control of HIV latency and transactivation by the Tat gene circuit

The reservoir of HIV latently infected cells is the major obstacle for eradication of HIV infection. The "shock-and-kill" strategy proposed earlier aims to reduce the reservoir by activating cells out of latency. While the intracellular HIV Tat gene circuit is known to play important roles in controlling latency and its transactivation in HIV-infected cells, the detailed control mechanisms are not well understood. Here we study the mechanism of probabilistic control of the latent and the transactivated cell phenotypes of HIV-infected cells. We reconstructed the probability landscape, which is the probability distribution of the Tat gene circuit states, by directly computing the exact solution of the underlying chemical master equation. Results show that the Tat circuit exhibits a clear bimodal probability landscape (i.e., there are two distinct probability peaks, one associated with the latent cell phenotype and the other with the transactivated cell phenotype). We explore potential modifications to reactions in the Tat gene circuit for more effective transactivation of latent cells (i.e., the shock-and-kill strategy). Our results suggest that enhancing Tat acetylation can dramatically increase Tat and viral production, while increasing the Tat-transactivation response binding affinity can transactivate latent cells more rapidly than other manipulations. Our results further explored the "block and lock" strategy toward a functional cure for HIV. Overall, our study demonstrates a general approach toward discovery of effective therapeutic strategies and druggable targets by examining control mechanisms of cell phenotype switching via exactly computed probability landscapes of reaction networks.