We did not observe fluctuations in CD4 and CD8 cell counts after the addition of VPA to HAART, suggesting that VPA did not alter the number of these cells. These results are consistent with those reported by Siliciano et al., showing no apparent increase in resting infected CD4 cells in patients receiving HAART and

VPA for neurological or psychiatric conditions [12]. Interestingly, HIV-1 plasma RNA levels were not affected by Caspase activity the addition of VPA, as 96% of patients had no episodic viraemia detected by standard Amplicor assay with a limit of 50 copies/mL. Our study has several important strengths and limitations. Its major strength is the ability to compare two different time periods of VPA treatment within the same study. This cross-over study design offers the possibility to use each subject as his or her own control and to eliminate between-subject variability. Although the cross-over approach has been applied to a variety of other medical conditions, we are not aware of other published studies that have used this design to prospectively examine the effect

of VPA therapy on the HIV reservoir. Our study may also have certain limitations. First, there may be a carry-over effect of VPA across study periods, which could potentially influence the results. However, there was no evidence of an effect between patients receiving VPA and those in the control group when the comparison was restricted to the first 16 weeks of the study, during which there was no contamination from previous treatment exposure. Secondly, selleck chemicals a more prolonged treatment period may be needed to observe the effects of VPA on the HIV reservoir size. The duration of 4 months of VPA therapy was based on data published by Lehrman et al., showing that this duration was sufficient to reduce the size of the HIV reservoir in resting CD4 cells [9]. In addition, in a recent case-report study, Steel et al. showed that long-term VPA therapy for more than 4 years did not significantly decrease the time to virological rebound after stopping HAART [11]. Therefore, a longer duration

seems an unlikely explanation for the failure of VPA therapy to induce a reduction in the size of the viral reservoir. Thirdly, it is possible that, if Branched chain aminotransferase ongoing viral replication is maintained to some extent, viral replenishment might compensate for or overcome the positive effect of VPA on the HIV reservoir, as three subjects exhibited a blip when starting the trial. However, this explanation seems unlikely as viral replication was not sustained and these participants showed no blips during the follow-up visits. In addition, the HIV reservoir size in CD4 cells did vary during the study period in these participants. Finally, it is possible that the number of patients included in each arm was too small and may have limited the power to detect a decrease in the HIV reservoir size following VPA therapy.