Progress on HIV-1 RT inhibitors with novel mechanism of action

HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) plays an important role in HIV-1 life cycle. At present, the listed NRTIs and NNRTIs targeting the RT showed high efficiency as clinical first-line drugs. However, the rapid emergence of multidrug-resistant viruses and significant cumulative drug toxicities compromises antiretroviral therapy efficacy and limits therapeutic options. Therefore, there is an urgent demand for new types of RT inhibitors with novel mechanism of action to address this challenge. In recent years, additional inhibitors with novel mechanism of action have been reported, including nucleic acid competitive inhibitors, reverse transcriptase-directed mutagenesis inhibitors, primers/templates-competitive reverse transcriptase inhibitors, polymerase-RNase H inhibitors, reverse transcription initiation process inhibitors, peptide inhibitors etc., which have brought new hope to the development of novel anti-HIV drugs. This article focuses on the development of these inhibitors.