HIV-1-Specific CTL Recognizing a Scarce Epitope Are Not Suppressed by HIV-1 Protease Inhibitors

HIV-1-protease inhibitors have received growing attention as agents that can affect proteases in human proteasomes, with potentially deleterious effects for HIV-1-specific cellular immunity. Studying the antiviral activity of HIV-1-specific CTL that recognize an epitope that is presented at limiting concentrations on infected cells, we find that several HIV-1 protease inhibitors do not affect their function. These data indicate that these protease inhibitors may have minimal impact on the antiviral activity of CTL.