Medicinal Chemistry Aspects of Thiazole and Thiazolidine Derivatives as Fundamental Building Blocks to Design New NNRTIs Against HIV‐1 Reverse Transcriptase

The therapy to treat the Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and decrease the viral load has been a challenge since its discovery due to its ability to mutate, escape from drug therapies, and immunologic system. Consequently, the development of new therapies, especially potential molecules that focus on specific viral mechanisms to block viral replication, became a critical challenge in recent decades. The Reverse Transcriptase (RT) is an RNA‐ and DNA‐dependent DNA polymerase enzyme that is responsible for transcribing viral RNA into double‐stranded DNA. Non‐nucleoside RT Inhibitors perform important role in HIV therapy, and they are responsible for inhibiting RT by blocking its allosteric site, which shows physico‐chemical properties such as high hydrophobicity and key amino acid‐to‐hydrogen bond interactions. For this reason, designing new molecules with innovative heterocycles compatible with these characteristics can provide new potential inhibitors. For example, pentacyclic heterocycles like thiazole and its derivatives like thiazolidinedione, which have physico‐chemical properties that can interact with the allosteric site of RT, can be a new perspective in designing new Non‐nucleoside RT Inhibitors. This work reviews the scientific literature concerning these compounds and can help the design of new antiviral therapeutics.