F. anti HIV therapeutics

Question 1

diagnosis of HIV done by testing

Answer 1

anit-HIV antibodies. using rapid test or indirect ELISA. a +ive test is confirmed using a western blot. patients antibodies bind to combo of HIV proteins then +ive

Question 2

the viral load can be test by

Answer 2

RT-PCR

Question 3

Anti HIV drugs

Answer 3

patient given combo of 3 drugs from 2 diff classes. reducers chance a drug resistant variant will emerge. reduce viral load but don’t stop replication

Question 4

nuceloside/nucleotide RT inhibitor

Answer 4

block reverse transcriptase, stopping synthesis of DNA. drugs are structurally similar to nucleotide/nuceloside so will bind to RT

Question 5

e.g. of nuceloside/nucleotide RT inhibitor

Answer 5

AZT has same structure as thymidine except it has a 3’ azido (N3) group instead of OH

Question 6

how does AZT work

Answer 6

it is phoshorylated by cellular enzyme to produce AZT-tri(p). RT added it instead of dTTP results in chain terminal die to lack of 3’ oh group. AZT does not bind to DDDP of cell. but competes w/dTMP for formation of dTTP which produces side effects

Question 7

non-nucleoside RT inhibitors

Answer 7

do not bind to nucleoside binding site of RT. bind to allosteric site, this disrupts enzymes activity

Question 8

protease inhibitors

Answer 8

drugs bind to active site of HIV protease. block maturation step. see how