CD36 and atherosclerosis: In support of our findings, which showed increase in CD36 expression over time during HAART, Dressman et al., [26] showed that CD36 plays a crucial role in cellular uptake and accumulation of lipids, and protease inhibitors induce a specific increase in macrophage CD36 levels, which may promote accumulation of sterol in macrophages, foam cell formation and atherosclerosis [26].