Maertens Lab publishes a paper describing how Cabotegravir inhibits HTLV-1

We previously showed that integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTIs) used in the clinic to treat HIV-1 patients are effective at blocking HTLV-1 integration and transmission in vitro (Barski, M.S. et al Frontier in Microbiology, 2019; Barski, M.S. et al. Nature Communications, 2021). Here we show that the long-acting INSTI, cabotegravir, recently FDA approved for use in HIV-1 patients, potently blocks HTLV-1 transmission in vitro. Use of cabotegravir (as well as raltegravir or bictegravir) as a pre-exposure prophylaxis could have a huge impact preventing transmission of disease between serodiscordant couples, needle injecting drug users and importantly could prevent mother-to-child transmission.