A network approach for HIV-1 drug resistance prevention

Abstract

In AIDS treatments, it is an imperative problem to reduce the risk of the drug resistance. The previous study discussed which HIV-1 gene products are an ideal drug target not to develop drug resistance by applying some ideas of the graph theory, and suggested that the drug resistance would not develop if the drug target molecule functions as "hub" in a chemical network where HIV-1 gene products interact directly or indirectly with intracellular agents in a HIV-1 host cell. The present study fortifies this suggestion in mathematical framework. The study develops the expression for a probability of drug resistance developing over the two different types: non-hub and hub of drug targets, and demonstrates that the hub drug target is more favorable for the drug resistance prevention than the non-hub one. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.