Drug research is a multidisciplinary as well as resource intensive endeavor. In this the center of attention is biological response of an agent which gives the first insight of the activity (or receptor) space in the backdrop of chemical landscape. Here, molecular topology has significant role in explaining and exploring different phenomena associated with the chemical entities. Thus it provides direction to the design of therapeutic agents. In the backdrop the review highlighted the contribution of topological indices from different concepts in the HIV-1 drug research. In this article selected reports dealing with the topological descriptors in the QSARs of the anti-HIV-1 compounds acting as reverse transcriptase, protease and integrase inhibitors are appraised and elaborated.