Abstract

VANEGAS-OTALVARO, DANIELA; ACEVEDO-SAENZ, LILIANA; DIAZ-CASTRILLON, FRANCISCO JAVIER  and  VELILLA-HERNANDEZ, PAULA ANDREA. Resistance to antiretrovirals: molecular bases and pharmacological implications. CES Med. [online]. 2014, vol.28, n.1, pp.91-106. ISSN 0120-8705.

One of the main characteristics of HIV is its high genetic diversity given in part by the low fidelity of the reverse transcriptase, which leads to the generation of viral variants bearing mutations associated with the evasion of the immune response, changes in the cellular tropism and/or antiretroviral resistance. Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is a pharmacologic scheme against HIV, which comprises two or more antiretroviral drug families, HAART aims to suppress viral replication which in turn decrease the morbidity and mortality of infected individuals, and increase their life expectancy and improve their quality of life. Mutations that confer resistance to antiretrovirals can be fixed in the viral genome and be transmitted to new hosts contributing to the movement of a viral population resistant to these drugs that results in virologic failure. In this review we describe the most common mechanisms associated with antiretroviral resistance, mutations reported in the literature and bioinformatics tools used for their determination

Keywords : HIV; Highly active antiretroviral therapy; Drug resistance; Mutation; Computational biology.

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