Study: Gene mutation can be shield against HIV infection
August 9, 1996
Web posted at: 12:30 a.m. EDT
From Correspondent Rhonda Rowland
ATLANTA (CNN) -- Scientists have long been baffled by people
who are repeatedly exposed to HIV through infected sex
partners but never catch the virus that causes AIDS.
They are the ones who ignore the advice of the public health
experts who have stressed for decades: To avoid getting AIDS
through sex, use a condom or abstain. Now, new research is
revealing that the people who manage to evade the virus may
have mutated genes.
"It's a rare individual. Within the Western Hemisphere,
1 percent inherit the gene allowing them to resist HIV," Dr.
Richard Kaup of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center explained.
According to the results of a study by his researchers,
published in the latest edition of Cell journal, an
alteration in a gene called CKR-5 allows some people to
resist HIV infection.
A group of Belgian scientists reported the same genetic
finding in another journal, Nature. They found the gene
mutation only in Western Europeans; it was missing in people
from Central Africa or Japan.
People who have the gene mutation inherited one copy of the
gene from each parent, Kaup said. Scientists don't yet know
whether two copies will provide 100 percent protection
against HIV, or whether people with only one copy also
benefit.
About 20 percent of Western Europeans may have inherited only
one copy of the gene. Researchers still don't know how many
groups in the population have the ability to inherit one or
two copies of the mutant gene. Having one copy may help
explain why some people who get HIV go years without getting
sick, while others develop AIDS and die quickly.
Scientists from the National Institutes of Health say the
finding may help them better understand how HIV works.
"It will tell us an awful lot about the mechanisms whereby
the virus enters cells in the body," said Dr. Anthony Fauci,
director of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases.
Fauci said the finding also could serve as "the basis to
develop what might turn out to be some interesting
therapeutic strategies," such as a new treatment that could
prevent those already infected with the HIV virus from
getting sick.
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