Integrase Strand Transfer Inhibitors as potential anti-HIV agent

Rigorous research over the years has produced a number of potential drugs that target various stages of the human immunodeficiency virus type I (HIV-I) life cycle. Despite remarkable success of anti HIV drug discovery, resistance and cross resistance posses major hurdles and needs attention. The last two decades of research to target virally encoded enzyme integrase, has yielded only one FDA approved drug raltegravir. This slow drug development for integrase may attribute due to its poor 3D structural and catalytic information. This review focus on the perspectives of integrase strand transfer inhibition related to structural and medicinal chemistry approaches as anti HIV target.