Harvard researchers have made a critical discovery that could pave the way for new, more effective HIV treatments. The researchers discovered pre-existing mutations in a small number of HIV patients, which can lead to the virus developing a resistance to the drugs that are administered in order to slow the progression of the disease.

The findings, published in PLoS Computational Biology, are particularly significant because even though it has been known for years that HIV can develop resistance to some drugs, researchers did not know whether the resistance developed based on pre-existing mutations, or if it waits for those mutations to occur.

Pennings and her team evaluated data from 26 clinical trials in which patients were treated with a typical combination of NNRTI drugs to help prevent multiplication of the virus. They discovered that the virus tends to develop resistance shortly after treatment is initiated or when treatment is re-initiated after a treatment break of one week or longer. The researchers found that resistance is less likely to develop later on and in those patients whose treatment is not interrupted.

Pennings declared:

“In order to prevent the evolution of resistance, we need to know where the resistance mutations are coming from, it was exciting to realize data from clinical trials could help us solve this puzzle. If we understand how the virus develops resistance, we can think of new ways to prevent it.”

According to the finding, the virus’ drug resistance is caused by pre-existing mutations and that resistance that develops early-on during treatment is probably the result of pre-existing mutations, whilst later resistance is linked to mutations in the virus that occur after treatment initiation.

Pennings points out that although the study may offer hope for the development of more effective HIV treatments in the future, the data used in this study was obtained from trials that exclusively included patients receiving NNRTI or un-boosted protease inhibitor treatments. Whether the results can be generalized to other therapies or patients not enrolled in clinical trials remains uncertain.

Written By Petra Rattue