Two women found with HIV-immune mutant gene

[2-0-Sixx]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-10/01/content_379267.htm

Two women found with HIV-immune mutant gene

Wang Zhuoqiong
2004-10-01 05:17

SHENZHEN: Two women have been identified as carrying a mutant gene that is immune to HIV/AIDS, the first such cases uncovered in China, a researcher said.

The finding is the joint effort of a research programme, "Association of Human Genetic Polymorphisms with HIV Affections," jointly conducted by the University of Washington in the US State of Washington and local Infectious Disease Hospitals and medical institutions in Guangdong Province.

Tuofu Zhu, associate professor of University of Washington and associate director of the Clinical Core at the Centre for AIDS Research (CFAR), introduced the programme to China a year ago as a part of his global research in nations in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia.

"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.

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.

Zhu said that setting up a research centre in Guangdong Province is appropriate as its population has made it the best platform for collecting diversified samples.

"With the largest mobile population in China, we can get samples from migrants who are from other parts of the country," said Zhu.

Since a greater number of patients infected with sexual transmitted disease in particular are reported in Guangdong Province, sample collections are more efficient than other regions in China, Zhu added.

So far, according to Zhu, his programme in Shenzhen has identified 11 Exposed Seronegatives (ES) since January.

Zhu explained that the immune systems of some individuals may be capable of resisting HIV infection. These individuals who do not appear to be infected with HIV despite multiple sexual encounters with HIV infected partners are referred to as exposed seronegatives (ES).

To be specific, any one who has conducted sexual activities at least twice weekly in four consecutive months with an HIV-infected partner might be identified as ES.

Of 11 ES cases, two cases have later been identified as carrying the mutant genes.

In Zhu's opinion, if medicine functioning similarly with the genes was put in the vagina and rectum, the HIV virus couldn't find its carrier to enter the human body and thus would be expelled.

In Shenzhen, both confirmed samples are women who have been exposed to HIV for many years but remained uninfected.

One of them, in her 40s, has kept a regular sexual life with her husband without any protection measures for nine years. Her husband, who was infected with the deadly virus by blood transfusion in 1994, was hospitalized in Shenzhen's Donghu Hospital in July last year.

However, due to the limited qualified samples, Zhu said it is still too early to draw any conclusion from the programme, adding "we definitely need more support from the local hospital, medical institutions and government to collect more data from ES people."


(China Daily 10/01/2004 page1)

 

[2-0-Sixx]

Has anyone ever heard the account of Eyam? It's a town in Britian that, during the Black Plague, had an unusual number of survivors. Well the story itself is really fascinating- but the implications of it are probably more relevant here. Modern researchers studied the DNA of the descendants of survivors, and found compelling evidence that suggests the plague, whatever caused it, acted as an evolutionary bottleneck, by which the survivors left descendants with a mutation that coincidentally gives them protection against AIDS.

This site (link below) has a description of it.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/blackdeath/default.htm

The village of Eyam

It's hard to prove the causative agent was a virus because of course in those days there were no blood tests for viruses. And today it's impossible to extract viral DNA from 700 year-old skeletal remains. But in the last few years some evidence has emerged that seems to support the viral theory.

There may not have been blood tests, but in England at least there were parish records from about 1540. They give a detailed picture of what happened to the inhabitants of even the smallest village - births, deaths, marriages, and baptisms. One such village was Eyam, a lead-mining village in the county of Derbyshire in an area known as the Peak District, in central England.

The Black Death suddenly struck this tiny village in September 1665. The town's rector persuaded the villagers to quarantine themselves to prevent the disease from spreading through the region. During the period of isolation, food was left for the villagers at a well on the parish boundary high up on the hill above the village, and paid for by coins which were dipped in vinegar to disinfect them. It seemed to work, because none of the surrounding areas were affected by the plague. A year later, the first outsiders ventured into Eyam. About half the town had survived.


Genetics to the rescue

In 1996, researchers from the National Institutes of Health in Washington D.C. led by Dr Stephen J O'Brien, tracked down the modern day descendents of Eyam from parish records and tested their DNA. They were curious to know whether the survivors shared any genetic similarity that had helped their ancestors resist the plague. They found high levels of a gene mutation called CCR5-delta 32 amongst the descendents. CCR5 is a gene that codes for a protein on the surface of white blood cells which acts as a receptor for other molecules involved in inflammation

These researchers knew about this protein from previous research on HIV which showed that HIV can slip past the protein, using it as a gateway to get inside and kill white cells. But people who have the mutated form of the gene - CCR5-delta 32 - don't have this protein and their white cells won't allow HIV in. So people with the mutation are resistant to HIV infection - they either don't get HIV at all or are much slower to get it than people who have the normal gene.

Here was the mutation showing up again in the population of Eyam. And not just Eyam. Areas of Europe that had been affected by the plague (including America, which was mostly settled by European plague survivors and their descendents) also had unusually high levels of CCR5-delta 32 - about fourteen per cent of the population compared to two percent in areas that never experienced the Black Death - such as Asia and Africa.

The big jump in the percentage of the population with the mutation has been calculated to have occurred around 700 years ago - around the time of the first major plague epidemic, say Duncan and Scott.

It appears that, beginning 700 years ago, the Black Death increased the genetic frequency of CCR5-delta 32 mutation in the Caucasian gene pool. This protected these populations from later epidemics of both the Black Death and also HIV. The populations of Asia, and Africa had no such protection - and this also explains why HIV/AIDS has spread more quickly there. It also appears that, like HIV, the Black Death was caused by a virus, say Duncan and Scott.

They say that during the period of the Great Pestilence there were probably two separate plagues - a viral haemorrhagic fever in Europe, the Black Death; and a bubonic plague in Asia and parts of the Mediterranean coast caused by Yersinia.

 

[miggidy]

woaw!

 

[Spitz]

if this shits real thats hudge. i wonder if you can reproduce that gene and inject it into people.

i fuckin love sceince man i wish i was better at understanding it.

the universe expanding is the coolest shit to me. i always think about if its exspanding whats it exspanding into. like whats right on the edge of universe and .................i guess.....none universe.

is it just a big white blank space? but even if it is a big white blank space is something. so what the fuck is it.

and how long will it keep exspanding befor it starts to withdraw?

i love just gettin blazed and sittin in the dark thinkin bout dumb ass shit like that.

 

[Ethereal]

Good thread, I have some more relevant information regarding this matter from a thread I put up a while back entitled: African Americans, the CC chekomine receptor 5, and the virus that causes AIDS.

Though, the information I gathered explained that the immunity came from survivors of Small Pox. Unless of course, this black plague in associated with Small Pox. Here is part of what I posted in the thread found here, with some more links to related information:

First I would like to explain what the CC chekomine receptor 5 is. The CC chekomine receptor 5 (CCR5) is a group of molecules that is present on the surface of human cells. For one to be infected with HIV, the disease must enter into your cells by way of attacking your cells surface, or binding itself to the CCR5. In other words, the disease latching onto the CCR5 receptor is the first phase of HIV infection before it attacks other parts of the surface (CCR2), and then enters the cell to spread.

There are astonishing facts that you need to know.

1. Some humans have a deletion in both copies of the gene that creates the CCR5 receptor. The CCR5 makes it much easier for HIV-1 to invade your cells, thus those who lack the CCR5 are resistant to HIV. This deletion sequence is found "almost exclusively" in those living in or decending from Europe. Ten percent of humans that are of European decent are resistant to HIV-1 infection. In other words, there genetic sequence will fight against the virus to prevent infection. From what I have read, there is not an African American population with this deletion, rather polymorphisms that accelerate the spread of HIV-1.

2. One percent of those decending from Europe are completely immune to HIV-1. In other words, they can have sex with HIV-1 infected humans and never get the disease.

Some scientists have linked this immunity to European anscestry where humans have survived small pox. It seems as though, those who survived the disease somehow developed an immunity to it. This seems bizare, and I myself have a hard time believing it, but you can read more about it here.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/30/1070127266087.html?from=storyrhs

There is no known (tested) African Americans with this immunity.

3. "Several polymorphisms in CCR5 do not prevent infection but instead influence the rate at which HIV-1 infection leads to AIDS and death. Some of these polymorphisms have similar effects in different populations; others only alter the speed of disease progression in selected groups. One polymorphism, for example, is associated with delayed disease progression in European-Americans but accelerated disease in African-Americans." -Scientific America
In conclusion, there are genetic sequences that accelerate the spread of HIV-1 in an African American's body, as well as accelerating the spread of HIV-1 to other bodies (due to the CCR5 receptor and how it is built). On the contrary, some caucasian's (white people) tend to resist the disease, and in some cases are completely immune to it.

Some of you are going to be scratching your heads after reading this post, and to be honest, this is simplified. Most of the sources you will find (not very many good ones) are so complex that you likely won't even want to read it. Start with the Scientific America article located here.

Feel free to post your thoughts, feelings, and your own gathered information.

If you come across other good sources please feel free to post them, because I'm sure there are many people who would like to know more, including myself. With this post I wanted to open a few eyes and just scratch the surface of this issue. Hopefully I have done just that. Here are a few more links that you may want to check out, all of which I used as sources for the information provided.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...eve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8751444&dopt=Abstract
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/30/1070127266087.html?from=storyrhs
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00055DC8-3BAA-1FA8-BBAA83414B7F0000&pageNumber=1&catID=2
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1272/n2641_v127/21224062/p1/article.jhtml

What I posted is just a starting point, simply peices of a much bigger reality. What 2-0-Sixx posted is much more clear, and makes more sense.

 

[naner12]

real good post 2-0

 

[nefar559]

of all the forums i've seen that report "HIV-immune mutant gene," it comes from that same chinese news source.

 

[2-0-Sixx]

Hmm...maybe that's because the report came out of China. :lick:

This isn't some new radical information; there have already been many studies about the mutated gene that exist amoungst white people. This is simply the first found in Chinese.

 

[fiyastarta]

and then they discovered they were actually men that have under gone a sex change.

 

[nefar559]

Hmm...maybe that's because the report came out of China. :lick:

This isn't some new radical information; there have already been many studies about the mutated gene that exist amoungst white people. This is simply the first found in Chinese.

lets hope it doesnt turn out to be like this story Prostitutes lose HIV immunity

until i hear it from come from a journal, i'm not surprized.

 

[45Yr Old Virgin]

if people would just stop fucking monkeys and apes, we wouldn't be in this problem

 

[Sad Eyez]

^^ lol
actaully they say that ihe way AIDS came around wasnt becuase someone fucked an ape. but in old tribes they hunted animals to eat of course. so when they would skin them the blood would transfer into the the human once they cut themselves while cuttign the animal..crazy huh?
good info in this thread tho- how'd u find this out?

 

[Jim_beam]

Nitro, is there any test available to see if you have aquired this mutation?? Pretty interesting stuff...good post

 

[FunK-3-FivE]

whoa