How Does HIV Drug Resistance Occur?
HIV drug resistance means a loss in the ability of a drug — or combination of drugs — to block HIV reproduction in the body. Drug resistance occurs due to mutations in HIV’s genetic structure, which is in the form of RNA, a tight strand of proteins needed by the virus to infect cells and produce new virus. HIV reproduces very rapidly and can’t correct mistakes made during the copying of genetic material, so mutations are very common. Two of the most important HIV enzymes are reverse transcriptase and protease. Nucleoside analogues and non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors target the reverse transcriptase enzyme, while protease inhibitors target the protease enzyme. In order for these antiretroviral drugs to be effective, they must attach themselves to the necessary enzyme. Certain mutations can prevent a drug from binding with the enzyme and, as a result, make the drug less effective.
