In order to replicate, HIV needs to integrate its genome in that of the host cell. This allows the virus to escape elaborate detection mechanisms in the cytoplasm and has important consequences for the biology of HIV. The first is that the virus can go latent and create a reservoir of infected cells in the body of the patient. The second is that the virus has to adapt to a chromatin environment that can be hostile to transcription. We have developed technologies to track the fate of HIV after its integration. These technologies allow us to better understand the relationship between the insertion site of HIV, the chromatin of the host and latency.