Knowledge of the polyprotein cleavage sites by HIV protease will refine our understanding of its specificity, and the information thus acquired is useful for designing specific and efficient HIV protease inhibitors. The pace in searching for the proper inhibitors of HIV protease will be greatly expedited if one can find an accurate, robust, and rapid method for predicting the cleavage sites in ...

We analyzed plasma HIV-1 from 27 antiretroviral drug-naive Ugandan adults. Previous subtype analysis of env and gag sequences from these samples identified subtypes A, C, D, and recombinant HIV-1. Sequences of HIV-1 protease and reverse transcriptase (RT) were obtained with a commercial HIV-1 genotyping system. Subtypes based on protease sequences differed from gag subtypes for 5 of 27 samples,...

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) with transmitted drug-resistance (TDR) limits the therapeutic options available for treatment-naive HIV patients. This study aimed to further our understanding of prevalence and transmission characteristics TDR application first-line antiretroviral regimens. A total 6578 HIV-1 protease/reverse-transcriptase sequences from individuals in China between 2000 2016...

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) protease inhibitors comprise an important class of drugs used in HIV treatments. However, mutations of protease genes accelerated by low fidelity of reverse transcriptase yield drug resistant mutants of reduced affinities for the inhibitors. This problem is considered to be a serious barrier against HIV treatment for the foreseeable future. In this st...

BACKGROUND The HIV protease is essential for the life cycle of the virus and is an important target for the development of therapeutic treatments against AIDS. The structures of HIV protease in complex with different inhibitors have helped in understanding the interactions between inhibitors and the protease and in the design and optimization of HIV protease inhibitors. RESULTS We report here...

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) protease has been continuously evolving and developing resistance to all of the protease inhibitors. This requires the development of new inhibitors that bind to the protease in a novel fashion. Most of the inhibitors that are on the market are peptidomimetics, where a conserved water molecule mediates hydrogen bonding interactions between the inhibit...

CD4(+) T cells from patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection undergo apoptosis at an increased rate, which leads to their depletion during disease progression. Both the Fas-Receptor (Fas-R) and interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta)-converting enzyme (ICE; caspase 1) appear to play a role in the mechanism of apoptosis of CD4(+) lymphocytes. Although Fas-R is upregulated on both CD4(+) a...

Highly purified, recombinant preparations of the virally encoded proteases from human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) 1 and 2 have been compared relative to 1) their specificities toward non-viral protein and synthetic peptide substrates, and 2) their inhibition by several P1-P1' pseudodipeptidyl-modified substrate analogs. Hydrolysis of the Leu-Leu and Leu-Ala bonds in the Pseudomonas exotoxin ...

human immunodeficiency virus infection / acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (hiv/aids) is a disease pertained to the human immune system. given its crucial role in viral replication, hiv-1 protease (hiv-1 pr) is a prime therapeutic target in aids therapy. in this regard, the dynamic aspects of ligand-enzyme interactions may indicate an important role of conformational variability in hiv-1 pr in...

BIOCHEMICAL, STRUCTURAL, AND DRUG DESIGN STUDIES OF MULTI-DRUGRESISTANT HIV-1 THERAPEUTIC TARGETS TAMARIA GRACE DEWDNEYDecember 2013Advisor: Dr. Ladislau C. KovariMajor: Biochemistry and Molecular BiologyDegree: Doctor of PhilosophyProtein point mutations acquired as a mechanism of survival against therapeutics cause structural changes that effect protein function an...