The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) belongs to the lentivirus a
subgroup of Retroviruses belongs to the Retroviridae family that attacks the immune
system. The last stage of HIV infection is AIDS. HIV is absurdly simple, albeit
surprisingly complex. The virus is composed of nine genes encoding 15 different
proteins. The literature has reported a large number of protein interactions of HIV and
human proteins. Accordingly, many human host factors have been described to be
important for HIV infection and replication. Systems biology (also known as
Systeomics) is an approach to study systematically complex interactions within
biological systems, and to integrate and analyze complex data sets from multiple
experimental sources. Long-term non progressors are patients who remain AIDS-free
for more than 10 years. In this group there are two subgroups: 1. virologic controllers
who maintain the viral load below 2,000 RNA copies/mL and 2. elite controllers who
have undetectable viral load or below 50 RNA copies/mL. Systems biology study of
elite controllers provides an opportunity to analyze the immune system response which
is uniquely endowed with the capacity to retain a long-term control of HIV replication.
Keywords: AIDS, Antiretroviral therapy, Elite controllers, HIV, Host cell,
Immune system, Interactions, Long-term non progressors, Replication,
Retroviridae, Retroviridae, Systems biology.