• Identification of drug resistance mutations against reverse transcriptase inhibitor in HIV-1 patients
  • Tolue Rezaei,1 Mohammad Karim Khosropanah,2,* Zana Karimi Kordestani,3
    1. Department of Biology, Sanandaj branch, Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj, Iran
    2. Department of Biology, Sanandaj branch, Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj, Iran
    3. Department of Biology, Sanandaj branch, Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj, Iran


  • Introduction: The use of HAART antiretroviral drugs effectively inhibits the progress of HIV-1 replication and prolongs the life of patients. However, there are many reasons for failure to treat these patients. One of the most important reasons is drug resistance. The aim of this study was to determine the drug resistance mutations in HIV reverse transcriptase inhibitor enzyme drug.
  • Methods: In this study, 29 HIV-positive patients with a viral load over 1000 were given venous blood. After DNA extraction, the samples were amplified and sequenced to determine drug resistance mutations using specific RT gene primers. Mutations were identified using the Stanford HIV drug resistance sequence database.
  • Results: Gene replication and sequencing were successful in 15 samples. After sequencing, it was found that V35T and V60I mutations had the highest prevalence (100%) and T215S had the highest prevalence (53.33%) among the main mutations. The lowest prevalence among the main mutations was E40F, D67G, T69N, K70S, K70R, Y115F, M184I, T215F, T215D, K219R and K219Q, each of which was seen in only one sample (6.66%).
  • Conclusion: Based on the high prevalence of mutations in the studied samples, it can be concluded that a different set of reverse transcriptase inhibitor drugs should be used. For example, it could be suggested to use two types of nucleoside inhibitors and one protease inhibitor.
  • Keywords: HIV, drug resistance, mutation, reverse transcriptase