What causes HIV resistance?
The human immunodefience virus (HIV), which causes the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), is a complex disease to control. Anti-HIV medicines focus on the specific properties of the virus. As the virus is easy to mutate, these properties can change and resistance to HIV drugs may occur. The high level of mutation means that a person with HIV carries only one strain of the virus. All strains of countless virus have different properties and all may have the potential to adapt to drugs.
The virus is made of ribonucleic acid and is part of a group of viruses called retroviruses. It does not contain enough genetic information for reproduction itself, so it uses the host cell machine. The viral genome produces basic protein products. The virus genes are susceptible to mutation and these sequence changes can produce changed protein products. These changed protein products are important in HIV resistance.
HIV medicines focus on specific places on viral pwers or their genetic productionsh. The main objectives of the drug are enzymes produced by the virus. For example, an essential part of HIV replication is enzyme reverse transcriptase. This enzyme uses the host cell machine to reproduce. Another important goal of the enzyme is protease, which cuts long viral protein chains to useful products such as reverse transcriptase and structural molecules.
One effective system of drug targeting is bound to the active place of the enzyme and prevents its replication. Genetic mutation in a viral genome can produce a changed version of this active place. The drug does not have to be able to bind to the site and block the enzyme.
Another mechanism of resistance to HIV resistance is to change the drug structure to be unnecessary. For example, the medicine may target the genome of the virus to avoid expressing genes and essential viral proteins from production. Mutations in the genome can make a binding place unrecognizableto the medicine. The mutated genome can also produce enzymes that can change the structure of the bound drug, which may be harmless to the gene expression.
HIV treatment generally uses a combination of drugs to control the progression of HIV infection. Even three or more drugs cannot eradicate each of the many tribes that are present in one infected person. Mutations that prevent drug behavior may already be present in viral strains, and when sensitive tribes are killed, resistant strains are transported and multiply.
Two viruses can also exchange genetic material for replication that forms a new virus that can be resistant to drugs. HIV drug resistance can develop either in an infected person known as the obtained resistance to drugs or can be transmitted from one person to another known as transmitted resistance to drugs. Failure of a drug regime can properly support the development of drug resistance.