Gaining a foothold: how HIV avoids innate immune recognition

During the first week after sexual exposure to HIV, HIV infection does not appear to trigger a strong innate immune response. Here we describe some recent studies that show that HIV may avoid triggering antiviral innate immune responses by not replicating efficiently in dendritic cells and by avoiding detection in infected CD4 T cells and macrophages by harnessing a host cytoplasmic DNase TREX1 to digest nonproductive HIV reverse transcripts.