Short Communication: Lamivudine Resistance of HIV Type 1 Does Not Delay Development of Resistance to Nonnucleoside HIV Type 1-Specific Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors as Compared with Wild-Type HIV Type 1

Abstract

We compared the development of resistance toward BI-RG-587 (nevirapine) and α-APA R89439 (loviride) starting from the wild-type HIV-1 strain IIIB and the 3TC-resistant HIV-1 strain containing the M184V mutation. The reverse transcriptase of the M184V mutant has been reported to have a higher fidelity. Our experiments showed that there was no significant delay in virus breakthrough of the M184V mutant as compared with the wild-type virus. We therefore conclude that the reported higher fidelity of the M184V mutant does not lead to a delay in the development of resistance to the nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors nevirapine and loviride.