Hongmei Mo

Ordered accumulation of mutations in HIV protease confers resistance to ritonavir

Analysis of the HIV protease gene from the plasma of HIV–infected patients revealed substitutions at nine different codons selected in response to monotherapy with the protease inhibitor ritonavir. Mutants at valine–82, although insufficient to confer resistance, appeared first in most patients. Significant phenotypic resistance required multiple mutations in HIV protease, which emerged subsequently in an ordered, stepwise fashion. The appearance of resistance mutations was delayed in patients with higher plasma levels of ritonavir. Early mutants retained susceptibility to structurally diverse protease inhibitors, suggesting that dual protease inhibitor therapy might increase the duration of viral suppression.

In Vitro Antiviral Interaction of Lopinavir with Other Protease Inhibitors

ABSTRACT The in vitro inhibition of wild-type human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by combinations of lopinavir and six other protease inhibitors over a range of two-drug combination ratios was evaluated. Combinations of lopinavir with indinavir, nelfinavir, amprenavir, tipranavir, and BMS-232632 generally displayed an additive relationship. In contrast, a consistent, statistically significant synergistic inhibition of HIV type 1 replication with combinations of lopinavir and saquinavir was observed. Analysis of the combination indices indicated that lopinavir with saquinavir was synergistic over the entire range of drug combination ratios tested and at all levels of inhibition in excess of 40%. Cellular toxicity was not observed at the highest drug concentrations tested. These results suggest that administration of combinations of the appropriate dose of lopinavir with other protease inhibitors in vivo may result in enhanced antiviral activity with no associated increase in cellular cytotoxicity. More importantly, the observed in vitro synergy between lopinavir and saquinavir provides a theoretical basis for the clinical exploration of a novel regimen of lopinavir-ritonavir and saquinavir.

Characterization of resistant HIV variants generated by in vitro passage with lopinavir/ritonavir.

Lopinavir (LPV, formerly ABT-378) is an HIV protease inhibitor (PI) that is co-administered with a small amount of ritonavir (RTV), which greatly increases and sustains the plasma levels of LPV. Lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r) has shown potent antiviral activity in both therapy-nai;ve and PI-experienced patients. To assess the effect of pharmacologically relevant ratios of LPV/RTV (LPV/r) on the emergence of resistant HIV in vitro, HIV-1 pNL4-3 was passaged in the presence of increasing concentrations of LPV alone and LPV/r. Passages with fixed 5/1 and 15/1 concentration ratios of LPV/r initially selected I84V and I50V/M46I mutants, respectively. Selection with LPV alone also generated the same initial mutants (I50V/M46I) as the 15/1 LPV/r passage. Further passage produced other mutations previously found to be associated with PI-resistance. Phenotypic susceptibility to both LPV and RTV decreased with successive passages, irrespective of whether RTV was present in the selection experiment. Furthermore, in the two selection experiments that included RTV (at either 5/1 or 15/1 LPV/r ratio), the IC(50) of RTV at each passage evaluated was at least five-fold higher than the concentration of RTV employed at that passage, while the IC(50) of LPV toward the passaged virus was similar to the concentration of LPV used at that passage, indicating that the selective pressure was attributable to LPV and not RTV.

In Vitro Selection and Characterization of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 2 with Decreased Susceptibility to Lopinavir

ABSTRACT Lopinavir (LPV)-ritonavir has demonstrated durable antiviral activity in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-infected antiretroviral-naïve and protease inhibitor (PI)-experienced patients. However, information on LPV activity against HIV-2 and the patterns of mutations in HIV-2 in response to selection by LPV is limited. The activity of LPV against three strains of HIV-2 was assessed and compared to activity against a reference HIV-1 strain. LPV demonstrated activity similar to that observed against HIV-1 in two HIV-2 strains (HIV-2MS and HIV-2CBL-23) tested. On the other hand, approximately 10-fold-reduced susceptibility was observed with the third HIV-2 strain, HIV-2CDC310319. Passage of HIV-2MS with increasing concentrations of LPV selected mutations V47A and D17N in the HIV-2 protease gene. The introduction of both 17N and 47A either individually or together into HIV-2ROD molecular infectious clones showed that the single V47A substitution in HIV-2 resulted in a substantial reduction in susceptibility to LPV. In contrast, this mutant retained wild-type susceptibility to other PIs and appeared to be hypersusceptible to atazanavir and saquinavir.