Does HIV Replication Persist in Patients on Antiretroviral Therapy?

One of the most contentious debates in HIV research is whether virus replication continues in patients who are taking antiretroviral therapy (ART). Both sides agree that virus-sequence evolution would count as evidence of ongoing replication, but no such changes have been convincingly found in the blood. To address whether replication may occur in an anatomic compartment, investigators sequenced virus from blood and lymph-node samples in three patients for a period of 6 months after they had started ART.

Phylogenetic analyses showed evidence of sequence divergence over time in lymph-node samples, leading the investigators to conclude there is persistent viral replication in this compartment. They also found differences between HIV sequences …