Figure 11. Mechanisms contributing to HIV replication in gut-homing CCR6⁺ T cells.

In this manuscript, we provide evidence that CCR6 is a marker for memory CD4⁺ T cells programmed to become HIV targets, especially in the intestinal environment rich in retinoic acid, due to their expression of a unique Th17-polarized transcriptional program and a mTOR-governed metabolic state. We propose the use of mTOR inhibitors together with ART to protect gut-homing Th17 cells from HIV infection/persistence.