Bleomycin has antiviral properties against drug-resistant HIV strains and sensitises virus to currently used antiviral agents.

In this study we performed phenotypic assays to assess involvement of the cancer chemotherapeutic agent bleomycin (BLM) in replication inhibition of mutant HIV-1 viral strains. Three clinically relevant mutant HIV variants, including one containing the Q151M mutation conferring multinucleoside resistance, were equally as sensitive to BLM as the wild-type HXB2 strain. Long-term incubation of BLM with a wild-type HIV(Ba-L) strain did not alter the sensitivity of the strain to BLM (IC(50) of BLM 0.