3′-Azido-3′-Deoxythymidine (AZT) and AZT-Resistant Reverse Transcriptase Can Increase the In Vivo Mutation Rate of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1

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Abstract
How antiretroviral drug resistance influences human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) evolution is not clear. This study tested the hypothesis that antiretroviral drugs such as 3′-azido-3′-deoxythymidine (AZT) can influence the in vivo mutation rate of HIV-1. It was observed that AZT can increase the rate of HIV-1 mutation by a factor of 7 in a single round of replication. In addition, (−)2′,3′-dideoxy-3′-thiacytidine (3TC) was also found to increase the mutation rate of HIV-1 by a factor of 3. It was also found that HIV-1 drug-resistant reverse transcriptase (RT) variants can influence the in vivo mutation rate. Replication of HIV-1 with AZT-resistant RTs increased the mutation rate by as much as a factor of 3, while replication of HIV-1 with a 3TC-resistant RT (M184V) had no significant effect on the mutation rate. It was observed that only high-level, AZT-resistant RT variants could influence the in vivo mutation rate (i.e., M41L/T215Y and M41L/D67N/K70R/T215Y). In total, these observations indicate that both antiretroviral drugs and drug resistance mutations can influence the in vivo mutation rate of HIV-1.