TAT and HIV infectious disease: Given that CS enhances HIV infection of NHBE cells (Fig. 1) and HIV Tat and CS suppress CFTR mRNA (and consequently function) via a common pathway involving TGF-β signaling5,11, and CS directly suppresses CFTR function by localizing them in aggregosomes28, we tried to determine if HIV infection and CS exposure leads to a synergistic suppression of CFTR biogenesis and function.