Talviraline

HIV type-1 (HIV-1) non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) are key drugs of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in the clinical management of AIDS/HIV infection. NNRTI-based HAART regimes effectively suppress viral reproduction, are not cytotoxic and show favourable pharmacokinetic properties. First-generation NNRTIs suffer the rapid selection of viral variants, hampering the binding of inhibitors into the reverse transcriptase (RT) non-nucleoside binding site (NNBS). Efforts to improve these first inhibitors led to the discovery of second-generation NNRTIs that proved to be effective against the drug-resistant mutant HIV-1 strains. The success of such agents launched a new season of NNRTI design and synthesis. This paper reviews the characteristics of second-generation NNRTIs, including etravirine, rilpivirine, RDEA-806, UK-453061, BIRL 355 BS, IDX 899, MK-4965 and HBY 097. In particular, the binding modes of these inhibitors into the NNBS of the HIV-1 RT and the most clinically relevant mutant RTs are analysed and discussed.

This study employed surface-based properties for use in the superimposition of three series of molecules. The properties used were derived from semiempirical molecular orbital calculations and can be related to the physics of intermolecular interactions. In each case, the superimposition of the compounds was within 0.6 A of the experimental overlay. The superimposition cases presented differing levels of involvement of electrostatic interactions, and in only one case did shape similarity provide the best overlay. Two test compounds were applied to an example exploring non-nucleoside HIV-1 reverse transcriptase inhibitors and only one of these compounds overlaid in the same manner as their crystal structure complexes. This served to highlight the need for molecules to occupy the same region of space when employing this technique. Nevertheless, the method can be used to generate pharmacophores and ultimately could be used to interrogate databases for molecules that match the key surface properties, thus allowing scaffold hopping.