Chimps may hold key to AIDS
Chimpanzees may hold vital clues for mankind’s war against the AIDS virus. However, the apes could be wiped out before they reveal their secrets, a leading genetic expert warned.
Chimpanzees may hold vital clues for mankind’s war against the AIDS virus. However, the apes could be wiped out before they reveal their secrets, a leading genetic expert warned.
Paul Sharp of Britain’s University of Nottingham told an AIDS conference in Durban that the latest research indicated chimpanzees, humanity’s closest living relative, were an important, but increasingly endangered resource for scientists hoping to better understand the HIV virus.
Chimpanzee populations are infected with viruses, which closely resemble the HIV-1 strain of the AIDS virus that is most common among humans.
Unlike humans, however, chimps do not progress to full-blown AIDS, an intriguing mystery for researchers, who hope to discover how to slow or stop the deadly disease in humans.
“If we can understand chimpanzees, maybe we can understand more about how the virus affects humans,†Sharp said. “Of course, we need to do that before chimpanzees become extinct.â€
Some researchers fear Africa’s chimpanzees could be wiped out in about 50 years, even earlier for certain species because they are hunted for meat and threatened by deforestation and disease.
A UN study last year said less than 10% of the forest home of Africa’s great apes will be left relatively undisturbed by 2030 if road building and other developments continue at current levels.
Sharp said researchers believed chimpanzees originally contracted their version of the HIV virus (SIV) from other monkeys and that at least initially, they likely suffered from AIDS-like symptoms, which may have caused death.
He said it was believed either the virus evolved to become less deadly, a scenario he described as unlikely given the long incubation period or chimpanzees developed physical strategies for disarming the virus or holding off its impact on their immune systems.
Sharp said this natural coping mechanism may already be starting in some human beings, noting that studies have found isolated, instances of individuals, where HIV infection does not progress at the same rate as in broader samples.
However, to understand the process and find ways to accelerate it, it will be necessary to get a clearer picture of what happens with SIV-infected chimpanzees, he said.
“It gives clues to how you can treat people successfully,†Sharp said.
He added that the latest research on the genetic history of the HIV virus confirmed it most likely first spread to humans in West Africa, possibly in Cameroon, as early as the 1930s, although initial cases were so rare.
The virus most likely got its first major beachhead in a human population decades later most likely in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he said.
But research also reveals the astonishing complexity of the virus and its ability to mutate and re-combine with other strains, continually producing “new and improved†versions that outpace mankind’s efforts at treatment, he said. “What we know about how the virus evolves is not good news for therapies, it is going to be difficult,†Sharp said.
Reuters
Paul Sharp of Britain’s University of Nottingham told an AIDS conference in Durban that the latest research indicated chimpanzees, humanity’s closest living relative, were an important, but increasingly endangered resource for scientists hoping to better understand the HIV virus.
Chimpanzee populations are infected with viruses, which closely resemble the HIV-1 strain of the AIDS virus that is most common among humans.
Unlike humans, however, chimps do not progress to full-blown AIDS, an intriguing mystery for researchers, who hope to discover how to slow or stop the deadly disease in humans.
“If we can understand chimpanzees, maybe we can understand more about how the virus affects humans,†Sharp said. “Of course, we need to do that before chimpanzees become extinct.â€
Some researchers fear Africa’s chimpanzees could be wiped out in about 50 years, even earlier for certain species because they are hunted for meat and threatened by deforestation and disease.
A UN study last year said less than 10% of the forest home of Africa’s great apes will be left relatively undisturbed by 2030 if road building and other developments continue at current levels.
Sharp said researchers believed chimpanzees originally contracted their version of the HIV virus (SIV) from other monkeys and that at least initially, they likely suffered from AIDS-like symptoms, which may have caused death.
He said it was believed either the virus evolved to become less deadly, a scenario he described as unlikely given the long incubation period or chimpanzees developed physical strategies for disarming the virus or holding off its impact on their immune systems.
Sharp said this natural coping mechanism may already be starting in some human beings, noting that studies have found isolated, instances of individuals, where HIV infection does not progress at the same rate as in broader samples.
However, to understand the process and find ways to accelerate it, it will be necessary to get a clearer picture of what happens with SIV-infected chimpanzees, he said.
“It gives clues to how you can treat people successfully,†Sharp said.
He added that the latest research on the genetic history of the HIV virus confirmed it most likely first spread to humans in West Africa, possibly in Cameroon, as early as the 1930s, although initial cases were so rare.
The virus most likely got its first major beachhead in a human population decades later most likely in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he said.
But research also reveals the astonishing complexity of the virus and its ability to mutate and re-combine with other strains, continually producing “new and improved†versions that outpace mankind’s efforts at treatment, he said. “What we know about how the virus evolves is not good news for therapies, it is going to be difficult,†Sharp said.
Reuters