Inorganic Polyhedral Metallacarborane Inhibitors of HIV Protease: A New Approach to Overcoming Antiviral Resistance

Abstract

HIV protease (PR) is a prime target for rational anti-HIV drug design. We have previously identified icosahedral metallacarboranes as a novel class of nonpeptidic protease inhibitors. Now we show that substituted metallacarboranes are potent and specific competitive inhibitors of drug-resistant HIV PRs prepared either by site-directed mutagenesis or cloned from HIV-positive patients. Molecular modeling explains the inhibition profile of metallacarboranes by their unconventional binding mode.