Building the Pharmacophore Model of HIV-1 Integrase Strand Transfer Inhibitors and Studying Their Inhibition Mechanism

The replication of HIV-1 requires the integration of its cyclic DNA into host DNA by HIV-1 integrase (IN), which includes two important reactions, 3’-processing and strand transfer, both catalyzed by HIV-1 IN. Disrupting either of the reactions will fulfill the purpose of inhibiting the replication of HIV-1. In this paper, pharmacophore modeling and molecular docking are employed to investigate the inhibition mechanism of the HIV-1 IN strand transfer inhibitors (INSTIs). Based on the results, we suggest that the inhibition mechanism of INSTIs involves the inhibitor chelating the cofactors Mg2+ and its forming hydrogen bonds with some crucial residues adjacent to the DDE active center.