AIDS: even in vivo, evolution persists.AIDS: Even in vivo, evolution persists The AIDS virus, HIV-1, is notorious for its ability to mutate mu·tate intr. & tr.v. mu·tat·ed, mu·tat·ing, mu·tates To undergo or cause to undergo mutation. [Latin m rapidly, making it a difficult, "moving target" for scientists trying to develop an effective AIDS vaccine. New research reported in the Aug. 4 NATURE provides a genetic explanation for some of the clinical complexity of AIDS infection, and supports previous findings that rapid and significant HIV-1 mutation may be rampant within individuals even after initial infection (SN: 4/9/88, p.232). Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham UAB began in 1936 as the Birmingham Extension Center of the University of Alabama. Because of the rapid growth of the Birmingham area, it was decided that an extension program for students who had difficulties which prevented them from studying in Tuscaloosa was needed. and the University of Miami This article is about the university in Coral Gables, Florida. For the university in Oxford, Ohio, see Miami University. The University of Miami (also known as Miami of Florida,[2] UM,[3] or just The U (Fla.) School of Medicine cloned and analyzed the genetic makeup of AIDS viruses isolated from two infected patients over a 16-month period. In 3 samples, they found 17, 9 and 13 distinguishable varieties of the virus. The limited degree of difference among the varieties suggests the viral variants evolved after the patients were first infected. "The results indicate that HIV-1 variation . . . is rapid, that a remarkably large number of related but distinguishable genotypic variants evolve in parallel and coexist during chronic infection, and that 'isolates' of HIV-1 . . . consist of complex mixtures of genotypically distinguishable viruses," the researchers say. Related work by the Alabama researchers in collaboration with scientists at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research This article is about the U.S. Army medical research institute (not the hospital). Otherwise, see Walter Reed (disambiguation). The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) is the largest biomedical research facility administered by the U.S. in Washington, D.C., indicates different HIV-1 clones may prefer to infect different types of white blood cells White blood cells A group of several cell types that occur in the bloodstream and are essential for a properly functioning immune system. Mentioned in: Abscess Incision & Drainage, Bone Marrow Transplantation, Complement Deficiencies . This may account for the heretofore unexplained variation in HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. infectivity of T-cells and monocyte-macrophages. |
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