Abstract:
Highly active antiretroviral therapy
(HAART) has resulted in decreased mortality and
morbidity from the acquired immune deficiency
syndrome caused by the human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV). Drug resistance and toxicity of HAART
has led to the search for novel inhibitors of HIV
infection. Gold-based compounds have shown promising activity against a wide range of clinical conditions and microorganism infections including HIV-1. A typical example is auranofin which resulted in an elevated CD4? T-cell count in an HIV patient being treated for psoriatic arthritis. In addition, reports exist on gold-based inhibitors of reverse transcriptase (RT), protease (PR) and viral entry of host cells. These and other characteristics of goldbased
HIV drugs are reviewed here.
