Current status and future development of anti-HIV chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy

Despite the success of antiretroviral therapy in suppressing HIV to an undetectable level in the blood and improving patients' quality of life, HIV persists in antiretroviral therapy-treated patients and threatens their lives. Anti-HIV chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells could offer a cure by recognizing and killing virus-producing cells in an Env-specific manner. In this review, the authors summarize several important aspects of the development of anti-HIV CAR T cells, with a special focus on the evolution of CAR design for enhanced potency and targeting specificity, and also outline the challenges that still need to be addressed to take anti-HIV CAR T cells from a hopeful approach to a real HIV cure.