Variability of the HIV-1 3′ polypurine tract (3′PPT) region and implication in integrase inhibitor resistance

Background Integrase strand-transfer inhibitors (INSTIs) are efficient at impairing retroviral integration, which is a critical step in HIV-1 replication. To date, resistance to these compounds has been explained by mutations in the viral protein integrase, which catalyses the integration step. Recently, it has been shown that selected mutations in the 3′ polypurine tract (3′PPT), a sequence involved in the reverse transcription mechanism, result in high-level resistance to these compounds. This observation was reinforced by the description of a patient who failed INSTI treatment by selecting mutations in the 3′PPT sequence. Methods Sequences of the 3′PPT region were analysed in 30706 treatment-naive patients from the public Los Alamos database belonging to six different subtypes and, in parallel, in 107 patients failing INSTI treatment. Results The analysis showed that the sequences of patients failing INSTI treatment, in the same way as those of treatment-naive patients, are very well conserved regardless of the presence or absence of resistance mutations in the integrase gene. Conclusions This study confirms that the selection of a mutation in the 3′PPT region conferring high-level resistance to INSTIs is a rare event. It would require a particular in vivo context and especially a long enough time to be selected, this exposure time being generally reduced by the rapid change of treatment in the case of virological failure. Larger-scale studies in patients with INSTI treatment failure are needed to determine whether the 3′PPT region can play an important role in vivo in INSTI resistance.