HLA-B Gene Fights HIV
Word of Caution: Beware of the timeliness of certain news sources. I wrote the following post based on a report from the Hindustan Times. It showed up in Google News as being only a few hours old.
After reading and writing my post, I did further research and found that this was a BBC story from 2004! Infectious disease is not my specialty so I wasn’t aware of this. The facts still remain the same but more research will undoubtedly have been done by now – 2006.
Lesson: When educating yourself on anything, especially health, look at more than one source and check the date.
Just for reference, the post I spent time writing is below the fold.
In a study of HIV-positive women attending antenatal clinics in Durban, South Africa, researchers found that HLA-B gene variants were associated with survival. And, women with the protective form of the gene were also less likely to transmit HIV to their newborn children.
HLA-B is an immune system protein that identifies HIV infected cells for termination, and influences the speed of progression. From Genetics Home Reference:
Studies suggest that people with HIV infection who have HLA-B27 or HLA-B57 tend to progress more slowly than usual to AIDS. On the other hand, researchers believe that HIV-positive individuals who have HLA-B35 tend to develop the signs and symptoms of AIDS more quickly than usual.
A version of HLA-B designated HLA-B57 is also associated with an extreme sensitivity to AIDS treatment abacavir.
Lead researcher Dr Philip Goulder had a fascinating comment about this new understanding of HIV and its ability to wreak havoc in the immune system:
This is an exciting time for infectious disease research because we are witnessing the evolutionary fight between the human immune system and the HIV virus happening right now, rather than over a period of thousands of years. This study identifies the genetic battleground where the struggle between HIV and the human immune response occurs.The findings will help in understanding precisely how the immune system can succeed or fail against HIV, a prerequisite for a rational approach towards design of an HIV vaccine.
Technorati Tags: hiv, aids, genes, genetics, health, dna, hla+b, hla, news, blogging
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