HIV-1 integrase: from biology to chemotherapeutics

AIDS has claimed the lives of 25 million people worldwide, an additional 40 million people are HIV-infected and new cases are being diagnosed every year. Despite the fact that HAART has moved AIDS from the category of terminal diseases to that of treatable chronic illnesses, its long-term therapeutic success may be compromised by the development of resistance to the currently used drugs. Despite the availability of RT, PR and fusion inhibitors, the development of further drugs such as inhibitors that target the third enzyme IN is essential for the clinical management of HIV-infected patients. The absence of cellular homolgues to IN and the unique nature of the reactions catalyzed by IN, make it an ideal target for drug design. Considerable progress towards designing HIV-1 IN inhibitors has been made over the last years and several lead compounds have been identified, synthesized and clinically studied. This review focuses on the existing knowledge of the biology of HIV-1 IN with emphasis on the mechanism of integration, structure and function and the technologies for measuring IN activity. This is followed by the current trends on designing HIV-1 IN inhibitors with the aid of molecular informatics and a review on the main classes of HIV-1 IN inhibitors reported this far with special emphasis on the clinical candidates.