HIV therapeutic vaccines aimed at intensifying combination antiretroviral therapy.

: Although successful at suppressing HIV replication, combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) only partially restores immune functions and fails to reduce the latent HIV reservoir, thus requiring novel interventions for its intensification.: Here are reviewed therapeutic vaccine candidates that are being developed to this goal. Among them, the Tat vaccine has been shown to promote immune restoration, including CD4+ T-cell recovery in low immunological responders, and to reduce the virus reservoirs well beyond what achieved with long-term suppressive cART.: The authors propose the Tat vaccine as a promising vaccine candidate for cART intensification toward HIV reservoirs depletion, functional cure, and eradication strategies, suggesting that targeting a key protein in the virus life cycle is pivotal to success.