Genetic Consequences of Antiviral Therapy on HIV-1

A variety of enzyme inhibitors have been developed in combating HIV-1, however the fast evolutionary rate of this virus commonly leads to the emergence of resistance mutations that finally allows the mutant virus to survive. This review explores the main genetic consequences of HIV-1 molecular evolution during antiviral therapies, including the viral genetic diversity and molecular adaptation. The role of recombination in the generation of drug resistance is also analyzed. Besides the investigation and discussion of published works, an evolutionary analysis of protease-coding genes collected from patients before and after treatment with different protease inhibitors was included to validate previous studies. Finally, the review discusses the importance of considering genetic consequences of antiviral therapies in models of HIV-1 evolution that could improve current genotypic resistance testing and treatments design.