Replicative Fitness Costs of Nonnucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor Drug Resistance Mutations on HIV Subtype C

Single-dose nevirapine (NVP) is quite effective in preventing transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) from mother to child; however, many women develop resistance to NVP in this setting. Comparing outcomes of clinical studies reveals an increased amount of resistance in subtype C relative to that in other subtypes. This study investigates how nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) drug resistance mutations of subtype C affect replication capacity. The 103N, 106A, 106M, 181C, 188C, 188L, and 190A drug resistance mutations were placed in a reverse transcriptase (RT) that matches the consensus subtype C sequence as well as the HXB2 RT, as a subtype B reference. The replicative fitness of each mutant was compared with that of the wild type in a head-to-head competition assay. The 106A mutant of subtype C would not grow in the competition assay, making it the weakest virus tested. The effect of the 106M mutation was weaker than those of the 181C and 188C mutations in the consensus C RT, but in subtype B, this difference was not seen. To see if the 106A mutation in a different subtype C background would have a different replicative profile, the same NNRTI resistance mutations were added to the MJ4 RT, a reference subtype C molecular clone. In the context of MJ4 RT, the 106A mutant was not the only mutant that showed poor replicative fitness; the 106M, 188C, and 190A mutants also failed to replicate. These results suggest that NNRTIs may be a cost-effective alternative for salvage therapy if deleterious mutations are present in a subtype C setting.