Two Women Found With HIV-Immune Mutant Gene

Trokair writes "China Daily reports that researcher Tuofu Zhu has discovered two women in an HIV Research program that are immune to the disorder via a mutant gene."

Comments

Re:Immune

[theparanoidcynic]

I think that the existance of this mutation has been known for some time. The key is that it was only thought to exist in the caucasian population until now.

Re:Immune

[lucabrasi999]

From the article

"Before, such mutant genes were only found in Caucasians. The finding has encouraged us to do further research in China, with the aim of developing medicines to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS for different races,"said Zhu.

Sounds like some mutant genes have been found previously, so I am not sure if this will add any new information to the fight against AIDS.

China is now at a key moment in adopting effective measures to control and prevent HIV/AIDS as the disease moves from high risk populations to the general population, in most cases though sexual transmission, Zhu pointed out.

China had better be prepared for a potential disaster. Even if the presense of this "mutant" gene does lead to some sort of cure, it will probably take years to develop and test. In the meantime, China, along with most Middle Eastern and Asian countries, has a high risk of having an AIDS related disaster of a scope way beyond what we now see in Africa. We're talking tens of millions of people infected and/or dying all across the Middle East and Asia.

Not as interesting as it sounds...

[vossman77]

If you RTFA you'll note:

"Before, such mutant genes were only found in Caucasians. The finding has encouraged us to do further research in China, with the aim of developing medicines to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS for different races," said Zhu

So it is NOT a new phenomenon.

Not really news

[ajna]

HIV immunity has been reported in various sources in the past:

• a group of Kenyan prostitutes believed to be HIV immune but no longer
• the case of David Crohn and others who lack secondary CCR5 (for macrophages) or CXCR4 (for T-cells) receptors and are thus resistant to HIV infection. NB: CCR5 and CXCR4 are believed to be secondary to the CD4 receptor, found on both cell types, in the HIV binding process.

The only novel thing about this discovery is that it was in Asians, vs. the Caucasian populations in which immunity had previously been reported (and I suppose African as well, even though the Kenyan prostitutes as referenced above turned out to not be immune). The article is pretty worthless, not even listing what the "mutant genes" are, but it's a pretty good guess that CCR5 and/or CXCR4 is involved.

Re:Lucky ladies!

[lucabrasi999]

there's still this particular virus called "pregnancy" that continues to cause abrupt stoppage of sex when performed au natural.

Trust me, that abrupt "stoppage" usually lasts much, much longer than nine months...

Re:Lucky ladies!

[Lord Kano]

Indeed! Now all they have to worry about is...
Gohnorrea
Herpes
Chlamydia
Syphillis
Ge nital Warts
HPV
Hepatitus
Trichomoniasis
and more! Lucky bitches...

In order....

Curable.
Nasty stuff, but not fatal.
Curable.
Curable.
Nasty stuff, once again not fatal.
Nasty stuff, not fatal unless it causes cancer.
Possibly fatal.
Nasty stuff, but curable.

HIV is the queen mother of STDs, once that is out of the way, there will be a lot more au naturale love happening in the world.

LK

Re:Genetics at work?

[ashridah]

"I don't think that's exactly the case. HIV is only twenty-five years old, which certainly isn't enough time for genetic evolution to take place (especially considering the relatively slow reporductive rate of humans)."

HIV is most certainly NOT only 25 years old.
It's extremely old, they have preserved tissue samples from almost 50 years ago or so that have been found to contain the virus (the subject died in exactly the same way as the first cases presented here)
(an english sailor died of a oppertunistic diseases, and after he died, tissue was preserved for later study.)

The event that has made HIV into a new epidemic is massive changes in social morality. Originally, HIV was called the Gay-Related immuno-deficiency syndrome or somesuch, because it was primarily affecting people who were outwardly gay.

Of course, it turned out that these people were just starting to be very broad in their choice of partners, and of course, people were starting to share needles for drug use.

ashridah

Re:Genetics at work?

[Raul654]

HIV is only twenty-five years old, which certainly isn't enough time for genetic evolution to take place.

Mutations happen all the time - 0.0000000000000214/nucleotide/generation according to these guys . Now multiply that by 3 billion nucleotides in a human, and 70(?) days to replace all the cells in your body. Most of the time, the mtuation is fatal and the cell dies. Most of the rest of the time, it does nothing at all. Once in a while, you get a mutation that is actually beneficial. And once in a while, that mutation happens to occur in gamates, so it actually gets passed on to children. That's clearly what happened in this case.

seen this immunity before...

[ezonme]

... in a different way. Check these "news" from July 2, 1998:

Geneva - Researchers have uncovered unusual behaviors of human immune systems that seem to have protected certain babies in Canada, prostitutes in Thailand and Africa, and gay men in San Francisco from HIV, despite exposure to the AIDS virus.

The protections do not appear to be genetic, and may offer some critical clues to those hoping to make a vaccine against HIV.

At Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Dr. Kelly MacDonald and a team of pediatricians noticed something odd earlier this year: HIV-positive mothers did not pass the virus to babies who were born with immunologically incompatible blood. In cases of incompatibility, the mother has one genetic type of immune system markers, and the baby a different set. This can put the baby at risk of being attacked by the mother's immune system.

But, in the case of HIV-infected mothers, this immunological incompatibility saved the babies from HIV, MacDonald reported yesterday. The finding was based on a study of 111 mother / child pairs.

MacDonald believes that a key factor in the babies' genetic makeup - called A2/A6802 supertype - by fortunate coincidence prevents HIV from infecting the child. When the mother and child share the same genetic makeup in their immune system, MacDonald discovered, the child is 2.63 times more likely to get infected with HIV.

Since approximately 40 percent of the population worldwide has the A2/A6802 supertype, it makes it an attractive target for vaccine design, MacDonald said.

The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 280 prostitutes in Thailand who had worked in brothels for three years or more, and a group of non-prostitute Thai women. Not surprisingly, the prostitutes were far more likely to be infected with the virus, and 47 percent were HIV-positive, the CDC reported yesterday.

Remarkably, however, nine of the prostitutes were negative for HIV, even though they had genital herpes and syphilis - clear indications of unsafe sexual behavior. The women did not have any of the genetic mutations that have been shown to protect some Caucasians from HIV. But they did apparently have complete immunity. Cells of their immune systems were killing every HIV to which they were exposed, the CDC team discovered. And laboratory studies revealed that their CD8 T-cells, a type of white blood cell, were secreting a factor which, when mixed in a petri dish with human cells and HIV, stimulated immune cells to destroy the virus.

Dr. Jay Levy of the University of California in San Francisco has presented evidence of a CD8-produced factor that stops HIV, as well. For years he has tried to isolate the mysterious substance, to no avail. But it could result, he said in a speech, in a way to maintain control of the virus without the need for antiviral drugs.

Sharon Stranford, a researcher in Levy's laboratory, examined the immune system cells of gay San Francisco men who have been exposed repeatedly to HIV and never become infected. She said that the CD8 cells in these men make a mysterious factor that protects against HIV. But it is not the same as the one discovered in Thai prostitutes, Stranford said, because it blocks HIV without prompting immune system cells to kill the virus. It works by blocking the ability of HIV to make copies of itself, Levy said.

Finally, a CDC team working in Abijan, Ivory Coast, has also found a group of uninfected prostitutes. They, too, lack any genetic protection. And their ability to fight off HIV is also immunological. The team hasn't yet worked out the details, researchers said, but it is clear that immune system cells in the African prostitutes are highly activated, as if constantly ready to go to war.

Immunity?

[FiReaNGeL]

First, it's been know for ages, so it's not a new mutation.

The specific 'mutation' involve CCR5, a coreceptor of HIV-1. An uncommun deletion called CCR5delta32 make it so that M-tropic HIV-1 can't enter CCR5+ cells in homozygote individuals (2 copies of the mutant gene). Heterozygotes (having a functional CCR5 and a mutated one) show less resistance to infection (70% resistance, estimated).

HIV-1 can exhibit a tropism (T-tropic) for another coreceptor, CXCR4, for which no mutation is known, so total immunity isn't exact; we can talk about resistance at best. M-tropic viruses are associated with de novo infection, and a switch to T-tropism is thought to be a turning point in the degeneration to AIDS (but not always).

Even CCR5delta32 individuals can be infected (althought have far less risk than you and me). Even then, the infection progress far more slowly than in normal individuals... they're called long term non-progressors. Won't develop AIDS in their lifetime, but still infectious, which can be dangerous...

Re:It seems unlikely.

[cyclop]

Hmmm...Is the parent a nice molecular-biology troll or just a gem of ignorance mixed with self-confidence?

"Because there's very little in the virus that is guaranteed to be common to ALL instances of said virus, it is hard to see how immunity could exist, even in theory."

The resistance mutation depends from the absence of a particular chemokine receptor on human white blood cells. In principle, the HIV virus could use another receptor to enter. In practice it's quite improbable the virus can mutate his whole capsid proteins to get advantage of a totally new receptor.

"Then, you have other problems. HIV is detected in a number of ways, but probably the most common way is to detect the antibodies to the virus. This causes an obvious problem. If your immune system is damaged, in some way, it may not be able to detect the virus and/or produce antibodies to it. Either way, any technique for detecting HIV through the antibodies would fail."

You obviously have no grasp of immunology. HIV infects primarily subsets of T cells. They are not B cells, that produce soluble antibodies. B cells are not attacked by HIV,therefore you argument is bullshit.
(In fact, B cells are indirectly affected by HIV, but only in late stages of AIDS disease.)

"So much so that they could fight the disease and not even need to generate antibodies to do so."

You have no grasp of immunology,it's obvious now. Your body doesn't "feel the need" for antibodies.It just produces them when encounters an antigen. In fact, you probably already have cells with anti-HIV antibodies: they're just very,very few and are not activated.(Wanna know why? RTFM, i.e. a molecular immunology textbook)

"In theory, since we don't actually know in practice."

We know. Check other /. comments and what I wrote before.

"Provided the self-destruct triggers faster than the virus can spread"

It seems you know nothing about virology and apoptosis too...

"...you're probably not going to live very long anyway, and your quality of life isn't going to be noticably better than those with the disease. In fact, it would probably be a whole lot worse. But, hey, if that's what these two women want for their life, that's their problem. "

If these women were immunodeficient, physicians should have noticed it immediately. Such a severe immunodeficience is, like you seem to understand, practically incompatible with life.

resistant, not immune

[jeif1k]

The women are more than likely "resistant" to HIV infection, not "immune" to it. While colloquially, the two terms may mean the same thing, the term "immune" suggests that they can't be infected by HIV because their immune system recognizes and destroys the virus. "Resistance" works by some mechanism other than an immune response.

Re:It seems unlikely.

[Chucklz]

Umm no. Grab an Immunology text and get busy. HIV begins by infecting CCR5+ CXCR4+ CD4+ T cells. B cells are the cells that produce antibodies, not T cells. Early in infection T-h cells are capable of activating B cells, with a corresponding increase of cytokine production (partially responsible for the early "flu" symptoms associated with infection). Early in infection there is a sharp increase in circulating IgG and IgA, so an ELISA/Western blot test for circulating antibodies is certainly justified. How would a body fight HIV. Well even late infection, CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes are still present, albeit in an impaired state due to an impaired generative ability. So, your body can still kill HIV infected cells. This does not even take into account the role of the complement pathway, which will be active at least through mid stage infection, and late stage in some patients. The immune system collapse is due to a loss of Th cells, which are required to modulate the B cell response, and of course Th cytokines are absolutely essential for the functioning of the rest of the immune system. Without these cells, the immune system doesn't do much, let alone fight itself. Where are all the deaths from anaphylaxis, and other hyper immune responses? The way that people are immune to HIV involves HIV entry into Th cells. Individuals with either a modified CCR5 or CXCR4 surface molecule do not support normal HIV entry into T cells. So, no entry, no infection. For your apoptosis suggestion, first learn exactly what apoptosis involves, and how viral replication works. If a cell goes apoptotic with even a few assembled viruses in its cytosol, they will spread. You must have a pathetically weak knowledge of the iummune system (or none at all).

CCR5delta32 is probably the mutant gene

[Linuxathome]

The "mutant" gene referred by the article most likely is the CCR5delta32 deletion allele of CCR5. I agree, this is not news. Many of the points made in the article were vague and the discovery itself is nothing novel -- even if they determined the frequency of this allele in the Chinese, this is not a new finding. In Steve O'Brien's Science paper, the frequency of CCR5delta32 in Caucasions is 0.1 (2.8% of exposed uninfected patients were deletion homozygotes). I remember another population study among Koreans to try to determine CCR5delta32's frequency in that population.

Even the statement about putting the "gene" in the vagina or rectum is not new: see microbicides.

Just a word to the wise, news like this will rarely, if ever, scoop a scientific publication in Science or Nature. If the discoveries truly have any scientific merit whatsoever, you'll more likely read about it in these journals or the media commotion stirred by these publications. In other words, unless somewhere in the article is says "results of these studies published in the journal [place name of journal here]," the results have not been peer reviewed. Therefore, "there's nothing to see here, move on."

Come to Asia and taste it, buddy !

[Taco Cowboy]

You sez:

"culturally Asians seem to be a lot less
promiscuous, which would imply that this
disaster doesn't seem so imminent"

This is so only to show others.

Asian culture is at its best in the sex scene.

On one hand, they will pretend that they are not sexually promiscuous, and on the other hand, the vast majority of Child Prostitution in the world happen throughout Asian countries. You can find child prostitutes in Indonesia, China, India, Kampuchia (formerly known as Cambodia), Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Malaysia and so on.

If you are willing to pay, you can even participate in the "deflowering" act, where you'd get a virgin child - male or female - for his / her first night.

What you do to them, as long as you don't kill them, is entirely up to you.

Re:Immune

[Hooded One]

That would be correct. The immunity has been known of for a few years. I'm sort of disappointed the article didn't make that clearer, or explain how it works at all.

My biology teacher covered it as part of our lesson on HIV, about 3 years ago. Basically, it has to do with the structure of their white blood cells. Specifically, they lack the CCR-5 protein for the virus to latch on to. The best part is that people can function just fine without this protein, so there don't appear to be any ill effects. The trick now is figuring out how to confer the immunity on those not born with it.

A simple search for "ccr-5" will give a whole bunch of articles for anyone who's interested.

Re:Immune

[Stephen H-B]

I may be wrong about this, but I remember reading/hearing that many of these 'immune' women were just asymptomatic carriers. That meant they were still infected with HIV and infectious but didn't themselves develop AIDS.

Re:Immune

[BuD-TheDude]

Very true, but keep in mind that this was not true immunity. The original ~10 prostitutes found immune were then taken away from their constant exposure to HIV and some were put on antiretrovirlas. It was only after this removal that they began to progress to AIDS. There are several ways in which our body can outmaneuver HIV. This adaptive immune response is remarkable though I feel that the protein APOBEC3G is also worth mentioning. APOBEC3G is an intracellular antiretoviral protein that "interferes with the replication of HIV by incorporating itself into virus particles and damaging the genetic material of the virus. The viral protein Vif can halt this process in two ways". Vif is one of atleast 15 proteins found in HIV's 9 definitive genes. For an interesting read: http://www.retrovirology.com/content/1/1/28

RTFA

[fluxrad]

This gene has been known of for quite some time. What is odd is that it was previously thought that only (primarily) caucasians had the mutant gene.

Re:RTFA

[Anonymous Writer]

Here is a theory why. The CCR5-Delta32 mutation has the highest concentration in Ashkenazi Jews and Nordic people, and developed a high concentration in Caucasians because it provided resistance to the black plague.

Re:It seems unlikely.

[spectecjr]

Read this and learn:

Origin of HIV

Genome sequencing of different isolates of HIV-1 and HIV-2 shows that each is related to retroviruses that occur in primates in Africa. These are designated simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIV) although they do not cause immune deficiency (or any disease) in their natural host. However, on those occasions when a SIV accidentally infects a primate of a different species, it does cause disease in the new host. The human epidemic is one example.
HIV-1 is most closely related to a SIV found in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes)
HIV-2 is most closely related to a SIV that occurs in the sooty mangabey (Cercocebus atys).
Genome analysis also permits the construction of phylogenetic trees which reveal different clades of HIV just as such analysis reveals evolutionary relationship between species.

(emphasis mine)

um, no

[autopr0n]

China and India are in the "developing" world, not the 3rd world, get it straight.

Re:um, no

[bluFox]

Third world was the non-aligned world,
perhaps a misnomer today since the second world [Communist world aligned against the US-Led block] is no more [except china N-Corea etc.]

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[extensis]

HIV is the virus, AIDS is the symptoms. No you can never directly die from HIV, HIV only infects CD4 positive cells; ie, T-Helper Cells. Unfortunatly T-Helper Cells are nessecary for an active responsive immune system, without it, you quickly succumb to a multitude of usually harmless diseases that can kill, eg herpes... some countries in africa the possibility of contracting HIV during your lifetime is now nearly 100% for teenagers.

Not totally new

[pk2000]

AIDS resistance has also been found in family trees that survived Black Death some 600 years ago.

http://www.geocities.com/endeavour_uksa/article.ht ml
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is _n6_v18/ai_19447788/pg_2

Re:It may not be relative

[Anonymous Writer]

Actually, I once saw a show on PBS where some scientists did a clever test.

You may be referring to Dr. Stephen Marquardt who found that faces considered to be beautiful conform to certain proportions. It is based on the Golden Ratio, which has many recurrances in nature, such as in the chambers of a nautilus shell.

Re:Tell me it ain't so !

[Chris Z. Wintrowski]

"There's no reason the entire human race would succumb to the AIDS epidemic, because it's entirely preventable. The only problem is educating people about the danger, and that's mostly solved in developed countries."

So how come HIV infection rates in developed countries are still increasing?

http://www.healthscout.com/news/68/516241/main.htm l
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-02-11-hiv -rates-rising_x.htm
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page /0,5478,10058673%255E1702,00.html
http://www.hivdent.org/publicp/ppIHDS122003.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3856963.stm

Re:Patents are the real key

[bloosqr]

Cite?

(Yes, I know not believing everything you read is genereally bad for the karma. So mod me down).

The wonders of google:

CCR5 Mutant Gene Sequence Patented for AIDS diagnoses :: Patent 6,692,938 "

Actually this one is more appropriate: Here is another article on a general CCR5 Gene Patent from Human Genome Sciences. This article goes quite in depth w/ regards the consequence of the patent filing on drug research w/ CCR5 inhibitors.

-bloo

Re:Genetics at work?

[ChrisMaple]

It's not a coincidence that the initial disease vector was a male homosexual. Anal sex tends to break capillaries, making the transmission of AIDS much more likely.