The discovery of a genetic difference between rhesus monkeys and humans may help find a way to stop HIV infection developing into Aids, researchers said on Monday.
British scientists funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) say they have identified a gene that prevents the rhesus monkey from getting infected by the HI virus. Rhesus monkeys can be infected by a monkey form of HIV, SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus), but not by HIV itself.
New World monkeys, on the other hand, have a form of the gene that blocks infection from SIV but not HIV.
The human form of the gene has what appears to be the crucial difference of just one amino acid from that of the rhesus monkey. Jonathan Stoye and colleagues, who published their work in the journal Current Biology, said they found that a single change to the gene would make it recognise HIV. ”If we’d had this change, we would probably never have had Aids in the first place,” he said.
Stoye said the question was: Can we try to make use of this single difference to treat humans? He and his colleagues will spend the next few years conducting experiments in the hope of devising a gene therapy that would limit the impact of HIV on the human body. — Â