Epigenetics and Immunotherapy: New Perspective for Breaking Chronic Viral Infection

Chronic or persistent viral infections, like HBV, HCV and HIV, are still a challenge for human health. More importantly, most human chronic viral infection will result in cancer, the top leading cause of death. So far antiviral drugs and immunotherapy have limited therapeutic effects on patients. New potential mechanisms of chronic viral infections are needed to explore before new effective therapeutic strategies can be put into use. Epigenetic alterations are an important hallmark of cancer. Recent studies indicate that chronic viral infections also induce epigenetic changes in the host. This review will try to summarize some of the most recent studies in these fields and explore a new strategy to break chronic viral infection by combining epigenetic therapy and immunotherapy.