The mystery of chemistry behind the mechanism of action of anti-HIV drugs: A docking approach at an atomic level

Abstract

The effect of HIV-1 on a human’s immune system cannot be ignored. This is the virus that reduces the power of the immune system to fight against any disease. Of course, many anti-HIV drugs are available, and many computational studies have been done to find out their mechanism of action, but the computational study regarding the chemistry behind the mechanism of action was not done yet. Therefore, the main objective of the study was to clarify the chemistry behind the mechanism of action of commercially available anti-HIV drugs. The drugs taken in the presented study were Entry Inhibitors (EIs) and Non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. First, literature data was evaluated computationally to ensure the reliability of the software used for the presented study. It was found that interaction-based experimental results and computationally evaluated results of the literature data were the same. After that, by following the same procedure, a docking study was done on the drugs taken in the current study. In addition, the residues involved in the interactions of EIs and NNRTIs with their receptors were studied to determine the chemistry that acts behind the action of both. It was found that EIs and NNRTIs work differently. It was also predicted that the derivatization of both drugs could make them more effective and active. Therefore, the presented study will be very helpful in the field of medicinal science.