Strategies of anti-retroviral drugs used in AIDS treatment

Question

What are some strategies of the anti-retroviral drugs used in the AIDS treatment?

Answer 1

Anti-retroviral drugs used in AIDS treatment try to approach any of the several steps of the HIV life cycle. There are three main groups of drugs: the reverse transcriptase inhibitors, that attempt to disallow the formation of DNA from the viral RNA (zidovudine, or AZT, ddI, d4T, 3TC, nevirapine, efavirenz, etc.); the protease inhibitors, that block the enzyme protease necessary for the assemblage of new virus (saquinavir, ritonavir, nelfinavir, indinavir); and the group of entry inhibitors (includes fusion inhibitors), that try to block the entry of HIV into the host cell (enfuvirtide, a fusion inhibitor).