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Currently, people with HIV (PWH) are dependent on uninterrupted regimens of antiretroviral therapy (ART) as reservoirs of latent infected cells remain despite treatment and can cause a rebound if ART is discontinued. Measuring the size of the HIV latent reservoir is useful in determining the effectiveness of cures that silence or eliminate these reservoirs, but current methods are imprecise, challenging, and time-consuming.

In this article, the authors describe a novel technique for identifying the size of the latent infected cell reservoir in PWH using an HIV-detecting reporter cell line and Cell Microsystem’s CellRaft technology, which they refer to as the Microwell Outgrowth Assay (MOA). In this assay, CellRaft Arrays allow for co-culturing of their fluorescent reporter cell line and CD4 T cells from PWH, while the CellRaft AIR System and software can automatically image and identify rare events such as reporter cells that fluoresce when infected. These infected cells can also be automatically isolated for downstream analysis and viral sequencing. Thus, not only is MOA a quick and scalable method for measuring viral outgrowth, but also can provide valuable information for HIV cures.