FIV as a Model for HIV Treatment

Human immunodeficiency virus integrase inhibitors efficiently suppress feline immunodeficiency virus replication in vitro and provide a rationale to redesign antiretroviral treatment for feline AIDS

“…A major limitation of the feline model is, however, the absence of treatments mimicking the sustained effects of combined antiretroviral therapies (ART) in humans. Similarly to HIV-1, FIV was shown to respond to nucleosidic reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors (NRTIs) [ 7 , 8 ]. However, FIV is not inhibited by non-nucleosidic RT inhibitors (NNRTIs) [ 8 , 9 ] and protease inhibitors (PIs) acting on HIV-1 [ 8 , 10 ], although the latter drug class was found to inhibit a wide range of non-HIV-1 targets [ 11 - 14 ].…”