Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Friday, December 4, 1998
Paul Recer, AP Science Writer
The variation, researchers reported Friday in the journal Science, occurs in a gene called CCR5. Some forms of this gene block the rapid spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but other variations actually cause the disease to speed up.
CCR5, along with three other genes, plays a role in how the AIDS virus invades and infects cells.
If patients inherit two copies of some variations of these genes from their parents, then they appear to be protected from HIV progression.
However, inheriting two copies of another form of the same gene apparently accelerates the infection.
Dr. Stephen J. O'Brien of the National Cancer Institute said that NCI researchers have now identified one of the gene variations, called CCR5P1, that promotes progression of the disease.
O'Brien said primary credit for the discovery should go to Mary P. Martin and Mary Carrington, leaders of an HIV research team at the federal cancer center.
About 10 percent to 15 percent of all HIV patients progress rapidly to AIDS, he said. These patients can go from initial infection to advanced disease and death within four years. In most patients, it takes about 10 years for HIV infection to progress to AIDS.
The new study, said O'Brien, has shown that 10 percent to 17 percent of the rapid progressor patients have two copies of the CCR5P1 gene variation.
Researchers hope to identify all the other gene variations involved in both the rapid acceleration of HIV and in the slow progress of the disease. This will help in the design and testing of vaccines.
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