SAMHD1 has differential impact on the efficacies of HIV nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors

Sterile alpha motif- and histidine/aspartic acid domain-containing protein 1 (SAMHD1) limits HIV-1 replication by hydrolyzing deoxynucleoside triphosphates (dNTPs) necessary for reverse transcription. Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) are components of anti-HIV therapies. We report here that SAMHD1 cleaves NRTI triphosphates (TPs) at significantly lower rates than dNTPs and that SAMHD1 depletion from monocytic cells affects the susceptibility of HIV-1 infections to NRTIs in complex ways that depend not only on the relative changes in dNTP and NRTI-TP concentrations but also on the NRTI activation pathways.