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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Cooperative Effects Of Drug-Resistance Mutations In The Flap Region Of Hiv-1 Protease, Jennifer Foulkes-Murzycki, Christina Rosi, Nese Yilmaz, Robert Shafer, Celia Schiffer Jul 2013

Cooperative Effects Of Drug-Resistance Mutations In The Flap Region Of Hiv-1 Protease, Jennifer Foulkes-Murzycki, Christina Rosi, Nese Yilmaz, Robert Shafer, Celia Schiffer

Celia A. Schiffer

Understanding the interdependence of multiple mutations in conferring drug resistance is crucial to the development of novel and robust inhibitors. As HIV-1 protease continues to adapt and evade inhibitors while still maintaining the ability to specifically recognize and efficiently cleave its substrates, the problem of drug resistance has become more complicated. Under the selective pressure of therapy, correlated mutations accumulate throughout the enzyme to compromise inhibitor binding, but characterizing their energetic interdependency is not straightforward. A particular drug resistant variant (L10I/G48V/I54V/V82A) displays extreme entropy-enthalpy compensation relative to wild-type enzyme but a similar variant (L10I/G48V/I54A/V82A) does not. Individual mutations of sites …


Co-Evolution Of Nelfinavir-Resistant Hiv-1 Protease And The P1-P6 Substrate, Madhavi Kolli, Stephane Lastere, Celia Schiffer Nov 2011

Co-Evolution Of Nelfinavir-Resistant Hiv-1 Protease And The P1-P6 Substrate, Madhavi Kolli, Stephane Lastere, Celia Schiffer

Celia A. Schiffer

The selective pressure of the competitive protease inhibitors causes both HIV-1 protease and occasionally its substrates to evolve drug resistance. We hypothesize that this occurs particularly in substrates that protrude beyond the substrate envelope and contact residues that mutate in response to a particular protease inhibitor. To validate this hypothesis, we analyzed substrate and protease sequences for covariation. Using the chi2 test, we show a positive correlation between the nelfinavir-resistant D30N/N88D protease mutations and mutations at the p1-p6 cleavage site as compared to the other cleavage sites. Both nelfinavir and the substrate p1-p6 protrude beyond the substrate envelope and contact …


Hydrophobic Sliding: A Possible Mechanism For Drug Resistance In Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Protease, Jennifer Foulkes-Murzycki, Walter Scott, Celia Schiffer Nov 2011

Hydrophobic Sliding: A Possible Mechanism For Drug Resistance In Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Protease, Jennifer Foulkes-Murzycki, Walter Scott, Celia Schiffer

Celia A. Schiffer

Hydrophobic residues outside the active site of HIV-1 protease frequently mutate in patients undergoing protease inhibitor therapy; however, the mechanism by which these mutations confer drug resistance is not understood. From analysis of molecular dynamics simulations, 19 core hydrophobic residues appear to facilitate the conformational changes that occur in HIV-1 protease. The hydrophobic core residues slide by each other, exchanging one hydrophobic van der Waal contact for another, with little energy penalty, while maintaining many structurally important hydrogen bonds. Such hydrophobic sliding may represent a general mechanism by which proteins undergo conformational changes. Mutation of these residues in HIV-1 protease …