The abundant acute phase proteins that we were able to detect elevations in during AHI may be only selected examples of constitutively-produced or inducible analytes that play a role in combating infections. There is an increasing amount of evidence suggesting that ''endogenous factors'' exist that have inherent inhibitory activity towards infectious pathogens [43] . These include antimicrobial polypeptides [44] and antiproteases such as cystatins that have also been detected in cervical mucosa [45] . Insights gained into the mechanism of action of innate factors and acute phase reactants against HIV-1 and how they can be induced should be considered for novel vaccine strategies and therapeutics.