A novel approach to develop anti-HIV drugs: adapting non-nucleoside anticancer chemotherapeutics.

Some anticancer drugs, but not all, inhibit replication of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and thus, exhibit a therapeutic potential. Such drugs, unlike the traditional HIV enzyme inhibitors, could suppress HIV strains that are resistant to inhibitors of viral enzymes, decrease proviral burden in vivo, or reduce reservoirs of infection via killing infected cells. Thus, they may be an effective adjunct therapy or perhaps result in a cure.