Lectins as Promising Therapeutics for the Prevention and Treatment of HIV and Other Potential Coinfections

Mazalovska, Milena; Kouokam, J. Calvin

Even though antiretroviral therapy has successfully improved health outcomes in HIV infected individuals, especially those living in industrialized countries, a high percentage of patients still do not have access to ARVs in poor areas (e.g., sub-Saharan Africa), where the disease burden is the highest [16] . Although availability is no longer a crucial issue, lack of trained clinicians and increased prevalence of associated diseases, such as tuberculosis, have impacted the management of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa [16] . Moreover, the fact that ARVs are associated with risk of developing other infectious diseases demands the development of new antiviral drugs to include in a comprehensive package designed to contain the AIDS pandemic. Entry inhibitors would constitute important additions to the currently available weapons against HIV-1 infection [17, 18] . Indeed, recent approaches have led to the design of active compounds interfering with entry events. For example, T-20, T-2410, and T-2429 inhibit gp41 mediated virus entry [19] [20] [21] ; meanwhile, Maraviroc belongs to a separate class of antiretroviral agents that target a host protein, the chemokine coreceptor CCR5, rather than a viral molecule [22] .