Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, November 1998, p. 3038-3043, Vol. 42, No. 11
0066-4804/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Coresistance to Zidovudine and Foscarnet Is
Associated with Multiple Mutations in the Human Immunodeficiency Virus
Type 1 Reverse Transcriptase
Gilda
Tachedjian,1,
Martyn
French,2 and
John
Mills1,*
National Centre in HIV Virology Research,
Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical Research, Fairfield, Victoria
3078,1 and
Department of Clinical
Immunology, Royal Perth Hospital, Western Australia
6000,2 Australia
Received 7 April 1998/Returned for modification 29 June
1998/Accepted 29 August 1998
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ABSTRACT |
Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) isolates obtained from
a patient with AIDS were assessed for coresistance to foscarnet and
zidovudine. An HIV-1 strain (AP20) coresistant to foscarnet and
zidovudine was isolated after 20 months of continuous combination therapy. The reverse transcriptase (RT) gene of AP20 had 41 substitutions which were different from the HXB2-D sequence and 9 that
were different from the sequence of its foscarnet-sensitive,
zidovudine-resistant progenitor virus (AP6). Six of these mutations
were nonpolymorphic (T39A, V108I, K166R, K219R, K223Q, and L228R). Both
strains had the conventional mutations mediating zidovudine resistance.
In vivo selection may result in HIV-1 strains that are coresistant to
foscarnet and zidovudine, but coresistance appears to require a complex
evolutionary path and multiple RT mutations.
 |
TEXT |
Foscarnet (PFA) is a broad-spectrum
viral DNA polymerase inhibitor which also inhibits human
immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) (27). Despite its
activity towards HIV-1 (4), PFA is used exclusively to treat
opportunistic viral infections such as human cytomegalovirus (CMV)
(28), acyclovir-resistant herpes simplex (2, 26),
and varicella-zoster virus infections (25) in patients with
immunodeficiency. PFA also inhibits Karposi's sarcoma-associated
herpesvirus in vitro (18) and may thereby decrease the risk
of Kaposi's sarcoma in patients with AIDS (5, 20).
PFA-resistant strains of HIV-1 have developed in patients with AIDS
receiving long-term PFA therapy for CMV retinitis (19, 29).
The reverse transcriptase (RT) substitutions W88G, W88S, Q161L, and
H208Y were observed in these clinical isolates (19, 29). In
vitro selection readily generates PFA-resistant strains of HIV-1
(19, 30) with single (E89K, L92I, or S156A) (30) or double (Q161L and H208Y) (19) amino acid substitutions in the RT region.
Zidovudine (AZT) is a thymidine analogue inhibitor of the HIV-1 RT
which has been used extensively to treat HIV-1-infected individuals.
Long-term AZT monotherapy is associated with the development of HIV-1
strains with reduced susceptibility to this drug (16).
Resistance is mediated by the stepwise accumulation of up to six
mutations in the HIV-1 RT including M41L, D67N, K70R, L210W, T215Y/F,
and K219Q (7, 9, 11, 14).
Given that both AZT and PFA may occasionally be administered either
sequentially or in combination to HIV-infected individuals, it was of
interest to determine whether strains coresistant to these drugs would
emerge in vivo. We have previously demonstrated that several mutations
which confer PFA resistance (W88G, E89K, L92I, Q161L) will reverse
phenotypic AZT resistance and that at least based on in vitro selection
studies, PFA and AZT resistance appear to be mutually exclusive
(31), suggesting reciprocal conformational changes between
the PFA and AZT-triphosphate binding sites on the HIV-1 RT
(31). Given these data, we have hypothesized that a complex
evolutionary path involving multiple RT mutations would be required to
generate a strain coresistant to AZT and PFA (31). Here we
describe a phenotypic and genotypic analysis of two HIV-1 clinical
isolates obtained from a patient with AIDS after 6 and 20 months of
continuous AZT and PFA therapy; the latter strain was coresistant to
these drugs. Consistent with our hypothesis, coresistance was
associated with multiple RT mutations.
To assess whether HIV-1 strains coresistant to PFA and AZT could emerge
in vivo, we studied HIV-1 strains from an AIDS patient who had received
long-term combination therapy with AZT and PFA for the treatment of
HIV-1 and CMV retinitis, respectively (Fig. 1). The patient presented with an HIV-1
seroconversion illness in June 1985. After 5 years of clinically stable
HIV-1 infection, AZT monotherapy (300 to 500 mg/day) was initiated in
June 1990 because of a drop in CD4 T-cell count from 440 to 110 cells/µl and the appearance of mucosal candidiasis (Fig. 1). PFA
treatment was initiated in November 1993. AZT and PFA were administered concurrently for 20 months until AZT was discontinued in July 1995 because of pancytopaenia resulting in central venous catheter sepsis
(Fig. 1). The clinical history of the patient, including the
relationship between antiviral therapy, serum p24 antigen concentrations, and CD4 T-cell counts from the time of commencement of
AZT monotherapy, is shown in Fig. 1.

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FIG. 1.
Relationship between antiviral therapy, serum p24
antigen concentrations, and CD4 T-cell counts from the time of
commencement of AZT therapy (June 1990) for the patient. The time of
isolation of HIV-1 strains AP6 and AP20 from the patient's PBMCs are
indicated. A p24 serum antigen concentration of 0 indicates that the
antigen was undetectable (i.e., <20 pg/ml) by the Coulter enzyme
immunoassay. Dosages for the administered antiviral drugs were as
follows: AZT, 300 to 500 mg/day; ddC, 1.25 mg/day; ddI, 400 mg/day;
PFA, 90 to 120 mg/kg of body weight/day; acyclovir, 200 to 400 mg/day.
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We isolated HIV-1 from the patient's peripheral blood mononuclear
cells (PBMCs) after 6 (strain AP6) and 20 (strain AP20) months of
combined therapy with AZT and PFA (Fig. 1). Virus isolation was
performed by cocultivation of the patient's PBMCs with PBMCs from an
HIV-1 seronegative donor as previously described (17). Pretreatment isolates were not available, as we had identified this
patient in June 1994 and blood specimens suitable for virus isolation
or direct sequencing had not been collected prior to this date.
To allow for the assessment of drug susceptibilities in the HT4LacZ-1
cell line (24), we made recombinant strains rAP6 and rAP20,
which had the RT coding regions of isolates AP6 and AP20, respectively,
inserted in an HXB2-D genetic background. Recombinant strains rAP6 and
rAP20 were generated by cotransfection of MT-2 cells (6)
with 5 µg of PCR amplified pol fragments derived from
HIV-1 strains AP6 and AP20, respectively, with 5 µg of
BstEII linearized pHIV
RTBstEII (12). All MT-2
cell transfections in this study were performed using DOTAP (Boehringer
Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany) as described previously (31).
The RT regions of AP6 and AP20 were PCR amplified from purified genomic
DNA obtained from phytohemagglutinin-stimulated PBMCs infected with AP6
and AP20. We used the Expand High Fidelity PCR system (Boehringer Mannheim) and we performed two rounds of PCR using nested primers. The
2.2-kb DNA product contained all of the RT coding region and pol flanking sequences (HIVHXB2-D coordinates 2033 to 4201).
PCR primers used in first- and second-round amplifications were 5'V3 and 3'V2, and 5'V2 and 3'V1HindIII
(ATATAAGCTTAGGGAATTCCAAATTCCTGCTTG; HIVHXB2-D coordinates
4180 to 4203) (21), respectively, as described previously
(31). Reactions were performed as described in the manufacturer's protocol by using 3.5 and 2.5 mM MgCl2 for
the first and second PCR rounds, respectively. Each round of
amplification was 35 cycles. Drug susceptibility assays were performed
in HT4LacZ-1 cells as previously described (31) with the
exception that cells were seeded into 24-well plates at 1.8 × 104 cells per well. PFA (Fluka Biochemika, Buchs,
Switzerland) was prepared as a 33 mM stock in sterile water. AZT (Sigma
Chemical Company, St. Louis, Mo.) was prepared as a 37 mM stock in
dimethyl sulfoxide. Zalcitabine (ddC) (Sigma) and didanosine (ddI)
(Sigma) were prepared at a concentration of 25 mM in sterile water. The statistical significance of differences between 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) values was determined by the Wilcoxon
rank-sum test (1).
Drug susceptibility testing with HT4LacZ-1 cells showed that
recombinant virus with the RT coding region of AP6 (rAP6) was highly
AZT resistant but fully susceptible to PFA, ddI, and ddC (Table
1). By contrast, rAP20 was resistant to
both PFA and AZT but remained fully susceptible to ddC and ddI (Table
1). Therefore, while 6 months of continuous PFA and AZT therapy failed
to select for HIV-1 coresistant to AZT and PFA, such a strain was
selected after 20 months of combination therapy.
To determine whether the evolution of coresistance to PFA and AZT was
associated with the appearance of multiple mutations in the RT coding
region, we performed nucleotide sequence analysis of the RT gene of
strains AP6 and AP20. The sequence was determined by both
population-based DNA sequencing and sequencing of individual molecular
clones. Molecular clones were prepared by PCR amplification of 2.2-kb
pol fragments as described above. The inner primer pairs 5'V2 and 3'V1HindIII contained BamHI and
HindIII sites, respectively, allowing cloning into the
BamHI-HindIII sites of pT7T319U (AMRAD Pharmacia Biotech, Boronia, Australia). The nucleotide sequence of the
entire RT coding region in recombinant phagemids was determined by
automated sequencing using the PRISM Ready reaction DyeDeoxy Terminator
Cycle Sequencing kit with Amplitaq FS (Perkin-Elmer, Foster City,
Calif.) as previously described (30). The five and seven
molecular clones derived from strains AP6 and AP20, respectively, were
designated pAP6(1) to pAP6(5) and pAP20(1) to pAP20(7). The
population-based DNA sequences for the RT genes of AP6 and AP20 were
determined by the direct sequencing of amplimers by using automated dye
primer sequencing as previously described (31). These
amplimers were prepared by two rounds of PCR. The first round used
outer primers 5'V3 and 3'V2 and was followed by one of two separate
second-round amplifications using either the M13 forward- and
reverse-primer pairs M13 5'V2 and M13Rcomb3 (to amplify codons 1 to
244) or M13 5'V4 and M13R 3'V6 (to amplify codons 218 to 511) as
previously published (31).
We thank Nicholas J. Deacon for his critical reading of the
manuscript and Brendan A. Larder for providing pHIV
RTBstEII.
This work was supported by the Australian National Centre in HIV
Virology Research and by the Research Fund of the Macfarlane Burnet
Centre for Medical Research.
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