Highly potent, synthetically accessible prostratin analogs induce latent HIV expression in vitro and ex vivo.

Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) decreases plasma viremia below the limits of detection in the majority of HIV-infected individuals, thus serving to slow disease progression. However, HAART targets only actively replicating virus and is unable to eliminate latently infected, resting CD4(+) T cells. Such infected cells are potentially capable of reinitiating virus replication upon cessation of HAART, thus leading to viral rebound.