Question

State whether true or false:
Antiretroviral drugs block the HIV-RT enzyme.

• A. AIDS is an immunodeficiency disease
• B. It is cause by the retrovirus HIV

Answer 1

The correct option is A AIDS is an immunodeficiency disease

AIDS (Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome) is caused by HIV. This virus selectively infects and kills the T-lymphocytes. The first step post infection is the reverse transcription of RNA into DNA so that this r-DNA can get inserted into the human genome. This is brought about by a viral enzyme, known as HIV-RT, in which RT stands for reverse transcriptase. There is a class of drugs called Antiretroviral drugs (ARV) which are essentially inhibitors of this enzyme.