Genetic Analysis Offers Insights Into AIDS Resistance

Finding could lead to new treatments, possibly vaccines, researchers say.

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter
Thursday, July 19, 2007; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

THURSDAY, July 19 (HealthDay News) -- Variations in three genes play a critical role in how different people infected with HIV respond during the early stages of their infection.

This finding, detailed in the July 20 issue of Science, could help scientists find vaccines as well as new treatment targets for people infected with the AIDS-causing virus.

"There are new mechanisms of control of HIV1 that are implicated by these findings," said study senior author David Goldstein, a professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke University and director of the school's Center for Population Genomics and Pharmacogenetics. "We don't yet know how to capitalize on those new mechanisms to develop new treatments, but it establishes directions for exploring new treatment options."

The study results are the first to emerge from the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI), a seven-year project funded by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) with a goal of understanding the genetic influences on early responses to HIV infection. Many more studies are planned.

"We're really only just getting started," Goldstein said.

"It is a very important study," said NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. "It's significant for a couple of reasons. First of all, it used a technique that is going to be increasingly used in the genetics of medicine and that is to do a genome-wide association study to try and identify genes or modifications of genes which we call polymorphisms that are associated with certain expression of disease."

People infected with HIV have widely varying responses to their infection, with some falling sick quickly and others successfully fighting off full-blown AIDS for years or even decades.

One measurable difference is the level of circulating virus in the blood during the "stable" period after a person is infected but before he or she develops symptoms. This "viral load" is generally an indication of how well the person's immune system is fighting off the infection.