Abstract
HIV protease is a dimeric aspartic protease that plays a key role in viral maturation. HIV polyproteins are cleaved by HIV protease into functional proteins during the process of maturation, which enables viral progeny to infect new host cells.
The indispensable role of HIV protease in the viral life cycle makes it a suitable therapeutic target. Development of inhibitors of HIV protease heralded a new era in treatment of HIV-highly effective combinations of several antiretroviral drugs with different mechanisms of action-and advanced the development of other antiviral therapies.
HIV protease is an extremely well-studied enzyme and a suitable model enzyme for various studies.