Dissection of HIV-1 Protease Subtype B Inhibitors Resistance Through Molecular Modeling Approaches

Abstract

Protease (PR) is an important enzyme required for the posttranslational processing of the viral gene products of type-1 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1). Protease inhibitors (PI) act as competitive inhibitors that bind to the active site of PR. The I84V mutation contributes resistance to multiple PIs, and structurally, this mutation affects both sides of the enzyme active site. In order to get insights about this major resistance site to PR inhibitors using in silico approaches, in this chapter, the wild-type (WT) and mutant (MT) I84V of PR were modeled and docked with all PR inhibitors: Atazanavir, Darunavir, Indinavir, Lopinavir, Nelfinavir, Saquinavir, and Tipranavir. Docking results revealed that in comparison to the WT, the binding score was higher for the MT-I84V. Thus, it can be suggested that the high affinity towards inhibitors in the MT could be due to the presence of energetically favorable interactions, which may lead to tight binding of inhibitors with the MT protein, leading to the development of PR resistance against PIs in HIV-1 eventually.