In Vitro Evaluation and Characterization of Newly Designed Alkylamidophospholipid Analogues as Anti-Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Agents

Our laboratories first reported two novel classes of complex synthetic lipids, including alkylamidophosphocholines (PC lipid; CP-51) and alkylamidophosphate ester-linked lipid–AZT conjugates (lipid–AZT conjugates; CP-92), with selective and potent activity against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). To extend these observations, we synthesized additional PC lipids and lipid–AZT conjugates (INK and INK–AZT conjugate) to evaluate their structure–activity relationships by testing for selectivity against infectious wild-type (wt) and drug-resistant HIV-1 replication, virus fusogenic activity and toxicity for mouse bone marrow cells. PC lipid compounds with medium chain lengths at positions 1 and 2 gave an improved selective index (SI). INK-3, with 12 and 8 carbons and INK-15, with 10 and 12 carbons were among the most selective when evaluated in CEM-SS cells. INK-14, a lipid–AZT conjugate where AZT replaced the choline in PC lipid INK-3, gave the highest SI of >1250 against both infectious wt HIV-1 replication in CEM-SS cells and a clinical isolate in peripheral blood leukocytes. Notably, the PC lipid compounds INK-3 and INK-15, but not the lipid–AZT conjugate INK-14, were potent inhibitors of matched pairs of AZT-sensitive and AZT-resistant HIV-1 clinical isolates. INK-3 also inhibited replication of HIV-2 and TIBO-resistant HIV-1, and inhibited HIV-1-mediated fusogenic activity by 78, 41 and 9% in a dose-dependent manner. The TC50 for mouse bone marrow cells was >100 μg/ml for INK-3 compared to 9.15–14.17 μg/ml for CP-51 and 0.142–0.259 μg/ml for AZT. These data suggest that optimum PC lipid compounds are significantly less toxic than AZT and have high potential as novel therapeutic agents for AIDS.