HIV-1 resistance mechanism to an electrostatically constrained peptide fusion inhibitor that is active against t-20-resistant strains

Abstract

T-20EK is a novel fusion inhibitor designed to have enhanced-helicity over T-20 (enfuvirtide) through engineered electrostatic interactions between glutamic acid (E) and lysine (K) substitutions. T-20EK efficiently suppresses wild-type and T-20-resistant variants. Here, we selected T-20EK-resistant variants. A combination of L33S and N43K substitutions in gp41 were required for high resistance to T-20EK. While these substitutions also caused resistance to T-20, they did not cause cross-resistance to other known fusion inhibitors. Copyright © 2013, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.