Druggability modification strategies of the diarylpyrimidine-type non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors

Drug discovery of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a hot field in medicinal chemistry community for many years. The diarylpyrimidines (DAPYs) are the second-generation non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) targeting reverse transcriptase, playing a great irreplaceable role in HIV transcriptional therapy. However, fast-growing drug-resistant mutations as nonnegligible challenge are still unpredictably appeared in the clinical practice, leading to deactivate or reduce the existing drugs. In the last 20 years, more and more novel DAPY derivatives have developed with the purpose to counter the mutants. Nevertheless, most of them have dissatisfactory pharmacokinetics (PK) or poor antiviral activity toward resistant mutant strains. In this article, we will analyze the NNRTI derivatives with promising druggability, and summarize a series of druggability modification strategies to improve the antiviral activity, reduce toxicity and improve the PK properties in recent years. The prospects of DAPYs and the directions for future efforts will be discussed.