Many studies have documented how extensively HIV-1 and related viruses interact with host cells. Virus-host interactions are of two conceptual types. First, viruses have evolved to make use of numerous host-cell functions to facilitate their own replication. Second, hosts have evolved a number of activities to inhibit virus replication. Understanding the scope and details of HIV-host interactions has been an extraordinary rich scientific endeavor, and in addition to their biomedical importance, studies in this area have established HIV as a model system in virology. Here, I present an overview of how HIV-1 interacts with some key host cell factors during its replication cycle.
