Slashdot Mirror
Prehistoric Gene Reawakened To Battle HIV
Linuss points out research published in PLoS Biology that demonstrates the reawakening of latent human cells' ability to manufacture an HIV defense. A group of scientists led by Nitya Venkataraman began with the knowledge that Old World monkeys have a built-in immunity to HIV: a protein that can prevent HIV from entering cell walls and starting an infection. They examined the human genome for any evidence of a latent gene that could manufacture such a protein, and found the capability in a stretch of what has been dismissively termed "junk DNA." "In this work, we reveal that, upon correction of the premature termination codon in theta-defensin pseudogenes, human myeloid cells produce cyclic, antiviral peptides (which we have termed 'retrocyclins'), indicating that the cells retain the intact machinery to make cyclic peptides. Furthermore, we exploited the ability of aminoglycoside antibiotics to read-through the premature termination codon within retrocyclin transcripts to produce functional peptides that are active against HIV-1. Given that the endogenous production of retrocyclins could also be restored in human cervicovaginal tissues, we propose that aminoglycoside-based topical microbicides might be useful in preventing sexual transmission of HIV-1."
Praise Raptor Jesus!
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
AIDS is pwned. Good for us and our "junk" DNA. One man's junk is another man's treasure!
I don't know what's scarier: the fact that a story with this sort of language made it to the front page or the fact that I understood it completely.
right...
/* This code commented out because I'm sure they're going to change their mind and I don't want to redo all the work. */
So how long till we're all having hot monkey sex with each other? Count me out of turning on any monkey genes in *my* DNA, thank you.
I've seen this episode of ST:TNG, so I *know* how this is all going to end.
Michael Coyne
http://turthalion.blogspot.com
We reactivated this gene in the lab, and it seemed to work. There's a type of antibiotic that seems to reactivate the gene as well. So applying the antibiotic topically (read "like spermicidal foam/gel) should reactivate the gene in a woman's naughtybits and so fight the virus.
Focused on the woman - good idea. But how does science focus on the man? How about "STOP FUCKING PEOPLE WHO AREN'T YOUR WIFE/GIRLFRIED/SIGNIFIGANT OTHER!"
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Minor side effect of re-activating the sequence - you become very hairy, lose the ability to walk upright, and have a curious craving to pick through other's hair in search of lice.
Hope is the currency of fools
If we have it, it must have evolved for a reason. Currently inactive DNA was active in the past. There's just no evolutionary pressure for it to be removed, so it sticks around.
Nope: We have a greater-than-1% difference with chimps, our closest living relatives. The Amoeba dubia has more than 200 times the amount of DNA than humans.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
It seems to me that we carry a "catalog" of genes that are not currently useful, but have been useful in the past. It's not as if evolution destroys genes - for the most part it tends to make them inactive.
Last post!
In this work, we reveal that, upon correction of the premature termination codon in theta-defensin pseudogenes, human myeloid cells produce cyclic, antiviral peptides (which we have termed "retrocyclins"), indicating that the cells retain the intact machinery to make cyclic peptides. Furthermore, we exploited the ability of aminoglycoside antibiotics to read-through the premature termination codon within retrocyclin transcripts to produce functional peptides that are active against HIV-1. Given that the endogenous production of retrocyclins could also be restored in human cervicovaginal tissues, we propose that aminoglycoside-based topical microbicides might be useful in preventing sexual transmission of HIV-1.
Woah, I think I'm going to need a car analogy...
Not from South America, if I remember correctly. There's a lot of genetic drift between American monkeys and monkeys found in Africa and Asia.
Science fiction???
Simply go for a walk around any UK town or city centre on a Saturday night and you'll see the Neanderthals out in force vomiting into gutters and pushing glasses into each other's faces.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
For some reason George W Bush springs to mind...
Old World = Africa, Europe, Asia
New WOrld Monkeys are those found in the Americas.
Old World Monkeys are those found in Africa/Europe/Asia
Specifically, Babboons, Colobus, etc.
Old world monkeys usually have tails, but unlike the New World Monkeys, their tails are NOT prehensile (i.e. they can't use them like a tentacle).
P.S. Wikipedia is your friend.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Old World Monkey
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Is that like junk in the trunk? Does this mean I should only have sex with women who are endowed with large posteriors?
Yes! Sir Mixalot was a wise man.
You'll feel even better next time you ask them to open a command prompt and ping something to check the network.
Silly scientists think they can out geekword us.
--- Need web hosting?
there's a whole bunch of crap down there i needed at one time, and mostly have forgotten about. there's also a small chance i'll need something down there again, but usefulness is so marginal. but every now and then i'll notice a glimmer of something in the corner i had totally forgotten, and i go "holy crap! this is incredibly important!"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
a caveman could do it.
...and I know really it's too early to know, but the big question on my mind is: what sort of treatment are we talking about here?
Can a cure for AIDS be derived from this? Or will it be a matter of "if we catch an HIV infection early, we can clear it up and minimize the damage"? Or is it only useful as a preventative measure, which seems to be where the quote in TFS is headed?
If it's only useful as a preventative measure, then there are two big issues.
One is how prone it would be to user error. If it's a "follow these steps every time you're going to put yourself at risk" kind of thing, then there's a concern that the increase in people's willingness to put themselves at risk exceeds the practical efficacy of the prevention. OTOH, if it's a "go to your doctor once (or once every X time period) for a professioally-administered round of protection", then that's probably less an issue.
The other is... look, I'm all for scientific progress, and I think we should research the hell out of this, but let's not jump the gun. As evidenced by the fact that we call potentially-functional strecthes of DNA "junk", we do not understand what they do. If prehistoric animals used this sequence and we don't, there is probably a reason, be it small or large. Maybe it's as simple as "it takes cellular resources and the risk of an HIV-like attack had subsided below the break-even point" - and if that turns out to be the case, FULL SPEED AHEAD! Or maybe evolutionary pressures put the protein in disfavor because it interferes with some other aspect of modern human biology, or has some secondary effect that is harmful. Now it's hard to imagine that would weigh in as "more severe than an active HIV infection", so it might still be a useful treatment for a known case of AIDS if it can be used in that way (depending on cost/benefit vs. other AIDS treatments); but not necessarily a good preventative measure if that were to turn out to be the case.
I can only imagine the cognitive dissonance in an HIV-infected creationist when s/he finds out about this!
If we have it, it must have evolved for a reason. Currently inactive DNA was active in the past. There's just no evolutionary pressure for it to be removed, so it sticks around.
You're sort of getting at how evolution works, but I have to nitpick your word choices. The whole idea is that evolution is random and patterns only emerge when those random mutations lead to statistically significant implications for survival and reproduction.
So it's misleading to say anything "evolved for a reason" because evolution isn't an intelligent process -- it doesn't do things because of reasons. It's also not exactly true that "[c]urrently inactive DNA was active in the past" because every generation is bound to produce lots of random genetic mutations which have no impact on our survival, in many cases because they have no impact on our physiology whatsoever. The commented (computer) code analogy is very apt here.
However, what you're hinting at isn't just that "we have it", it's more precisely that "we all have it." The fact that a large portion of the human population all has the same inactive DNA in this position does imply that it was active in the past, and that it was beneficial in the past, because that's the only way the same DNA could end up in every person's genome. If it had never been active or useful, then we would all have had to (randomly) mutate the same useless code in that spot, which would be statistically very improbable.
The longest I ever spent on a novel was a couple weeks. Millions of years? That's one long novel.....
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
To dumb it down for you:
"The mumbo jumbo we did caused the cells of some female naughty parts to create some stuff that made those cells safe from HIV."
Don't feel too outclassed, they aren't getting laid either.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
People be careful when you summarize research in evolution. Creationists are known to quote mine and they repeatedly quote the mistaken summary (like the one posted here in slashdot) but attribute it, wrongly and knowlingly to the science article. No matter how many times you correct they continue to persist in their misrepresentation. Finding pseudogene is quite common and it actually strengthens the argument for a common ancestor. Like all mammals can make their own Vitamin C. But we primates cant. The gene to make the vitamin exists as a mutated pseudogene in our genome. Such pseudogenes are quite common.
But somehow in the mind of a creationist, gaining understanding of the original function of a pseudogene is somehow an evidence against evolution. Don't feed these trolls with sloppy summaries.
I am very sure, creationists will trumpet "Scientists have pie in their face. New function found in junk DNA. Death of Evolution is neigh. Halleluja!" quoting this very summary.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I just want to know how this bug got out of testing. You'd think "causes AIDS" would be a showstopper
Thus sayeth the Lord:
"It is no bug, yea verily, it is a feature."
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Junk DNA = We don't really know what it does
Not so much anymore; these days, it's more like it does not act in the simple, straightforward way that we expect genes to act. But then, genes don't seem to much, either. We're learning more and more about the many ways that "junk" DNA actually does play an active role in shaping human biology. (Original, more technical article.)
Do something about world hunger. Click here
Slut!!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sorry, I'll show myself out.
We still have a lot of our DNA not yet "activated"[...] This also means we're still babies in terms of our evolution.
Fire up Windows.
Now fire up every single application you have installed.
While you're at it, download and load every single Windows application ever.
Getting a lot done?
Maybe activating the "full potential" of Windows isn't all that useful.
The other advantage of monogamy over polygyny is that, with polygyny, a few rich guys suck in a lot of the hot babes and the bulk of the males end up with a less desirable partner or none at all.
So if they want the nerds to reproduce and raise rug-nerds to keep the infrastructure running for their heirs to milk, the ruling class needs to give up on, or at least limit the size of, their harems.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
There are reports of some women in Africa that are immune to HIV.
Years ago there was an article linked to on Slashdot about some women prostitutes in Africa who were immune. I tried to find it but perhaps I didn't spend enough tyme because I didn't find it. A few days ago I found another one where some women in China appeared to be immune as well. Here's "Two women found with HIV-immune mutant gene".
Falcon
Should there be a Law?