In vitro cross-resistance to doravirine in a panel of HIV-1 clones harbouring multiple NNRTI resistance mutations

Objectives: Doravirine is a recently licensed HIV-1 NNRTI with improved efficacy, pharmacokinetics and safety profile compared with efavirenz and limited cross-resistance with rilpivirine and etravirine. In this in vitro study, cross-resistance to doravirine was analysed in a representative panel of NNRTI-resistant clones.

Methods: In vitro phenotypic susceptibility to doravirine was assessed in 10 clinically derived infectious clones with intermediate- to high-level resistance to rilpivirine, etravirine, efavirenz and nevirapine, and in NL4-3 site-directed mutants harbouring K103N, Y181C, M230L or K103N/Y181C NNRTI mutations.

Results: Although none of the infectious clones harboured any of the major doravirine resistance-associated mutations (RAMs) included in the IAS-USA reference list, doravirine fold change (FC) values were comparable to or higher than those calculated for other NNRTIs, particularly etravirine and rilpivirine. As expected, single NNRTI mutations K103N and Y181C did not impair doravirine susceptibility (FC 1.4 and 1.8, respectively), while reduced activity was observed with the single M230L or double K103N/Y181C mutations (FC 7.6 and 4.9, respectively). Median FC values increased significantly with increasing numbers of NNRTI RAMs (P = 0.005) and were >10 in 4/4 and 1/4 clones harbouring four and three NNRTI RAMs, respectively. FC values correlated well with predicted susceptibility as inferred by Stanford HIV Drug Resistance Database (HIVdb) and ANRS algorithms (both P < 0.001).

Conclusions: Substantial cross-resistance to doravirine was detected in NNRTI-resistant viruses harbouring complex mutational patterns, even in the absence of major IAS-USA doravirine RAMs. Therefore, based on the simple IAS-USA reference list, doravirine resistance may be underestimated in viruses harbouring multiple NNRTI mutations.