New classes of HIV drugs on the horizon. A review of the presentation at the satellite symposium "New hope: advancing care in HIV infection" at the 15th annual Association of Nurses in AIDS Care conference, November 2002.
Despite the success of combination HAART in improving the clinical prognosis of HIV-infected patients, therapeutic options are limited for many patients, particularly those with extensive treatment experience. Resistance, cross-resistance, and toxicity combine to threaten the durability of antiviral response, necessitating the development of novel agents. The HIV life cycle has many potential targets for inhibition in addition to the current reverse transcriptase and protease targets. These include the HIV integrase, nucleocapsid, and Tat proteins and the viral entry process. Entry inhibitors can be classified as attachment, coreceptor, and fusion inhibitors, according to the stage in the entry process at which they act. Most advanced in development of these is the fusion inhibitor enfuvirtide. Enfuvirtide is a potent inhibitor of HIV fusion whose novel mechanism of action and extracellular nature mean that it will induce limited cross-resistance to currently approved antiretrovirals and fewer toxicities.
O'Brien
William A
WA
University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, USA.
D000818:Animals; D019380:Anti-HIV Agents / Q000145:classification / Q000378:metabolism / Q000627:therapeutic use; D017277:Drug Approval / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006678:HIV / Q000187:drug effects / Q000254:growth & development; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D016097:Simian Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000188:drug therapy; D014481:United States; D014486:United States Food and Drug Administration
D019380:Anti-HIV Agents