Evolutionary Characteristics of HIV Type 1 Variants Resistant to Protease Inhibitors in the Absence of Drug-Selective Pressure

To understand the evolutionary characteristics of HIV-1 variants resistant to protease inhibitors (PI), the replicating plasma virus was analyzed in three patients shifted to a PI-sparing regimen after virological failure. The dynamic features of carryover of mutations associated with PI resistance in the absence of selective pressure on the protease gene indicate that viral variants resistant to reverse transcriptase inhibitors and bearing mutations of the protease sequence can maintain efficient replication capacity in vivo.