Mariana Ramirez-Godinez

Mutations and Drug Resistance of HIV

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a type of retrovirus, which is a type of virus

that can inject its RNA into the host cell and then becomes part of the DNA, so when the DNA is

replicated, HIV is also being created. Each time HIV is replicated, its gets mutated and the

difficulty to try to destroy the virus rises. The virus targets the immune system, but it especially

targets the T cells (CD4 cells). The CD4 cells are responsible for fighting off the infections

within the body and if the destruction to the T cells continues then the bodys risk to disease and

infection increases (What is HIV/AIDS?,2016). When the body reaches to a point where the

immune system is very weak, then it transitions to the name Acquired Immunodeficiency

Syndrome (AIDS), which is the final stage of HIV. It is a serious condition, but there has been a

lot of development over time to try and have the virus under control, almost reducing the

numbers of the virus to become undetectable. For my research I will be looking into the

information of HIVs mutations and a possible resistance on the drugs. In which they have been

developed to slow down the disease from progressing into AIDS. For my future career it may

help test people for HIV or get to work on finding other things that might have not been found.

For the future I will try to help spread awareness of the virus and help let people know what the

virus does to the body, especially to the newer generations who may not know about the

devastating effects of the virus.

Retrovirus HIV does not have an exact source of origin, though it is believed that the

virus came from a certain primate that had a similar disease called Simian Immunodeficiency

Virus (SIV). The virus might have been transmitted by blood to humans when a certain breed of
primate was being hunted down by humans. HIV cannot survive out and in the environment,

although with the right conditions and temperature, HIV can live up to 42 days (How Do You

Get HIV or AIDS?, 2015). Transmitting HIV is not so easy, only some bodily fluids can be

transmitted, fluids like breast milk, semen (pre-seminal fluid), vaginal fluids, rectal fluids and

blood. In the act of actually infecting someone, the virus can spread by injecting an unclean

needle/syringe, damaged tissue, or mucous membrane. (How Do You Get HIV/AIDS?, 2015).

HIV is not transmitted like a usual communicable disease (by the air, water and/ or insects), it is

usually transmitted by either vaginal or rectal intercourse, and mother to child during pregnancy.

Though there are other extremely rare cases where the virus can be transmitted by blood

transfusions, being bitten by an infected person who has it, and eating food that has been

pre-chewed by an HIV infected person (How Do You Get HIV/AIDS?, 2015). But there is

treatment to try and reduce the risk of infecting others, if taking the medication consistently and

one might have crossed the point where the virus is undetectable within the body. These people

are very unlikely risk to transmit the virus on those who do not have it.

Our immune system is a great defence that the body uses in order to fight off invading

pathogens that promote or cause harm to the body. The immune system has many cells that have

their own specific jobs that try to help fight infection and disease. HIV, likes to target the

Thymus cells (T cells). T cells are an alarm for the immune system. When responding to HIV,

the immune system does suppress the virus but some of it gets away and infects the T cells and

these T cells turn into a factory that produce HIV and the T cell eventually is destroyed in the

process of making the virus (Immune system 101, 2011). When the immune system is weakened

by the virus other pathogens or cancers can take the opportunity to invade the body. For one to
be infected with HIV, and do not take the medications that try to suppress and make a longer life

expectancy can quickly progress to AIDS, and when one has AIDS their life expectancy is up to

three years (What is HIV/AIDS?, 2016)

The mutations of this virus occurs rapidly. This may be one of the reasons why it is

feared. There has been research and studies into the mutations of the virus. From the research

that Davey et al. (2014) conducted, it touches the topic of HIVs mutations, mentions within the

research that the mutations of HIV identified were able to give a window to how HIV functions

and also narrow the focus of the reproduction (or mutations) of HIV. In another research article

that helps to try and cluster the types of sequences that have been classified. There was a lot of

math used to find these sequences, and according to Ozahata, Sabino, Diaz, Cezar, & Ferreiras

(2015) research results have stated to how the data is formatted. It shows rows of the sequences

of proteins, and the cluster of activity of mutations that frequently happen together. The research

article has included the data from patients in brazil that have failed the antiretroviral therapy

(Ozahat et al., 2015). Though all the data has been sorted into a table that has been included into

the article, there is a lot of unusual numbers that may have different meanings to the

transcription/manufacturing of HIV within the body, taken from the data of patients in Brazil.

With both of these articles, especially the Ozahata et al. (2015) article was heavily written on the

data and numbers of the mutations of HIV. In the last piece of the article it mentions they did the

intensive data research in order understand the patterns and to help studies into the pathways of

HIV and research for vaccines. In the Davey et al. (2014) article there were formulas that were

given in order to try and find any similar mutations within HIV and also made a resource called
The HIV mutation browser, the browser was created for other researchers to access research

that has been done on the mutations.

So far there are 6 drug classes that are used against HIV. and there are 25 types of

medications that are used to treat HIV that within the 6 types of medication that is used

(Overview of HIV treatments, 2015). Some medications can be combined in order to make

treatments more effective. There are some guidelines of HIV, and regimens for people that have

been infected and should consider them when stumbling upon (Overview of HIV treatments,

2015 ). It is good to start treatment nonetheless because there will be a less likely chance for

others to not be infected when committing to the treatment and also one can live a long healthy

life. The medications that are mostly used to try and restrain the virus are mostly a type of

inhibitor. Retroviruses have an enzyme, and in order to make an enzyme useless in a way an

inhibitor can block the active site of an enzyme or change the shape of the enzyme in order to

render it useless. With the medications that are developed in this day and age, there is a high

active use of these medications that are helping to suppress the virus greatly to those that are

HIV positive. Although there has now been some concern on the resistance that might occur

with HIV on the drugs that help to try and suppress its numbers and to try to stop the virus from

maturing. In a research article lead by Mizingwane et al. (2016) it mentions on how there is a

possible drug resistance of HIV that might occur. Within the article of Mizingwane et al. (2016)

they experimented with new drugs and there was a virological failure because of a development

in drug resistance and with the mutation patterns that were shown there were parts that shown a

developing drug resistance, and this research was done in South Africa.
 The data from the research has varied between one another and have their claims and

trials of what they did on the mutations, and or drug resistance of HIV. The research articles

could have been more simpler in use of pictures, tables and language, although the people who

have written them are doctors that have more experience in this topic (or field of theirs) that they

may have expected others who are trying to find or figure out the cure for the disease. I wished

that some of the research gather data from trials worldwide or from the U.S. because of the some

familiarity or places where the virus is much more common, and with the transmission having a

high rate in order to try and get the idea wrapped around people's minds on how devastating this

virus is. Plus it would be great to spread the information out into the world especially to the

young population in countries that have trouble, like Africa. In some parts of Africa there is a

belief that if a man has HIV and would like to get rid of the virus, then they try to get rid of it

by passing it to woman (who has not lost their virginity) through sexual intercourse, usually the

women are not going to expect this to happen to them, and may have not known about this and

become victims to the incurable virus.

In conclusion, HIV is a serious type of disease, a retrovirus that can wipe out ones

immune system greatly, and have a high risk of getting infected with diseases that the immune

system could have easily obliterated without HIV restraining its use. The virus is also a lifelong

disease because at this moment no cure for the unforgiving disease. People now should or might

be more aware on how the virus works and its effects on the human body, especially to the

countries that surround the developing countries that have a high rate of transmission of the

disease.
Reference Sheet

Immune system. (2011). Retrieved from

https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/just-diagnosed-with-hiv-aids/hiv-in-your-body/imm

une-system-101/

How do you get HIV/AIDS? (2015). Retrieved from

https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/how-you-get-hiv-aids/

Overview of HIV Treatments (2015). Retrieved from

https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/just-diagnosed-with-hiv-aids/treatment-options/over

view-of-hiv-treatments/

What is HIV/AIDS? ( 2016). Retrieved from

https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/what-is-hiv-aids/

Davey NE, Satagopam VP, Santiago-Mozos S, Villacorta-Martin C, Bharat TAM, Schneider R,

& Briggs, J.A (2014) The HIV Mutation Browser: A Resource for Human

Immunodeficiency Virus Mutagenesis and Polymorphism Data. PLoS Comput Biol

10(12): e1003951. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003951

Mzingwane, M. L., Tiemessen, C. T., Richter, K. L., Mayaphi, S. H., Hunt, G., & Bowyer, S. M.

(2016). Pre-treatment minority HIV-1 drug resistance mutations and long term

virological outcomes: is prediction possible? Virology Journal, 13(1). DOI:

10.1186/s12985-016-0628-x

Ozahata, M. C., Sabino, E. C., Diaz, R. S., M Cesar, R., & Ferreira, J. O. E. (2015).

Data-intensive analysis of HIV mutations. BMC Bioinformatics, 16, 35. DOI:

10.1186/s12859-015-0452-0