Mechanisms involved in non-progressive HIV disease.

HIV disease is a culmination of a complex interplay between both viral and host factors. As the underlying biological and molecular mechanisms involved in determining disease status are not fully understood, the relationship between the two can be better extrapolated using long-term non-progressing individuals who harbor the virus but clinically show some form of immunologic control over it. Only a fraction of individuals comprising less than 1% of the total HIV-infected population show no clinical sign of infection for an extended period of time. Continued immunologic characterization of such non-progressing individuals will lead to the delineation of anti-HIV mechanisms and development of immunotherapeutic modulators for controlling HIV. In this article, we present recent progress made in non-progressive HIV disease, and summarize the vast array of literature on factors and mechanisms which determine the effectiveness of viral and antiviral responses in maintaining a non-progressive state of HIV infection.