What are host cellular factors?

Question

With respect to this paper:

Global Analysis of Host-Pathogen Interactions that Regulate Early-Stage HIV-1 Replication

What does the term "host cellular factors" mean??

Answer 1

Generally spoken, "host cellular factors" are proteins, receptors etc. of the host cell. In this case, they are important for the HIV infection. The authors write:

Recently, a genome-wide siRNA analysis revealed over 250 host cellular factors that influence HIV-1 infection.

This means gene silencing techniques where used to identify the host cellular factors which are important for the infection, you can find these results here: "Identification of host proteins required for HIV infection through a functional genomic screen." The overall goal is to identify proteins which are important for the function and infection of HIV to understand the interaction between virus and host cell better.