HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors currently used in antiretroviral therapy can be divided into two classes: (i) nucleoside analog RT inhibitors (NRTIs), which compete with natural nucleoside substrates and act as terminators of proviral DNA synthesis, and (ii) non-nucleoside RT inhibitors (NNRTIs), which bind to a hydrophobic pocket close to the RT active site. In spite of the efficie...

Clustering of 99 available X-ray crystal structures of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) at the flexible non-nucleoside inhibitor binding pocket (NNIBP) provides information about features of the conformational landscape for binding non-nucleoside inhibitors (NNRTIs), including effects of mutation and crystal forms. The ensemble of NNIBP conformations is separated into eight discrete clusters ba...

BACKGROUND Reverse transcriptase is a major drug target in highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) against HIV, which typically comprises two nucleoside/nucleotide analog reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors (NRTIs) in combination with a non-nucleoside RT inhibitor or a protease inhibitor. Unfortunately, HIV is capable of escaping the therapy by mutating into drug-resistant variants. Comp...

Nucleoside-resistant isolates have been identified in patients receiving antiretroviral nucleoside drugs. The different resistance phenotypes seem to correlate with different sets of mutations in reverse transcriptase (RT), and the effect of individual set of mutations on resistance to a specific NRTI can only be presumed by kinetic studies and building up the enzyme active site by molecular mo...

The HIV-2 serotype of HIV is a cause of disease in parts of the West African population, and there is evidence for its spread to Europe and Asia. HIV-2 reverse transcriptase (RT) demonstrates an intrinsic resistance to non-nucleoside RT inhibitors (NNRTIs), one of two classes of anti-AIDS drugs that target the viral RT. We report the crystal structure of HIV-2 RT to 2.35 A resolution, which rev...

Drug resistance remains to be a serious problem with type I human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs). A series of novel boronic acid-containing diarylpyrimidine (DAPY) derivatives were designed via bioisosterism and scaffold-hopping strategies, taking advantage the ability acid group form multiple hydrogen bonds. The target compounds synthesi...

Combinations of reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors are currently used in anti-human immunodeficiency virus therapy in order to prevent or delay the emergence of resistant virus and to improve the efficacy against viral enzymes carrying resistance mutations. Drug-drug interactions can result in either positive (additive or synergistic inhibition) or adverse (antagonistic interaction, synergis...