Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1988. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Newsday - June 10, 1988
Laurie Garrett
The dozens of other known strains kill human cells, particularly the cells of the body's immune system. AIDS researchers have generally believed that such cell killing is the way the virus causes disease.
In one study, Dr. Jacques Moreau describes a patient he treated at Treichville Hospital, in Abijan, the capital of Ivory Coast. The patient suffered the symptoms of typical African AIDS - diarrhea, severe weight loss, fatigue. But he also appeared to be demented, indicating the virus may have entered his brain. The patient died after a few months in Moreau's care.
Moreau sent samples of the patient's blood and brain tissue to Dr. Jay Levy and Dr. Louise Evans at the University of California in San Francisco. Levy and Evans discovered the patient was infected with HIV-2, a type of acquired immune deficiency virus found virtually nowhere but Africa.
But, said Levy, this particular strain of HIV-2 virus, unlike other AIDS viruses, had not killed the cells it infected. Instead, he said, the virus seems to have disrupted the cells, "infecting them and preventing normal function. So proteins the cells are supposed to make don't get made. Gastric cells don't make gastric hormones, muscles can't function because myelin isn't made, cells don't make proteins that normally protect the brain. The cells are there, they are alive, but they aren't doing their jobs."
In the second study, researchers from the University of Alabama in Birmingham reported discovering another strain that disrupts cells. A team led by Dr. George Shaw obtained these viruses from the blood of a prostitute from Senegal in West Africa who was infected with a previously unknown strain of HIV-2.
The Alabama researchers say this newly discovered type of AIDS virus does not easily infect human cells.
Scientists have been searching for a slow-acting AIDS virus to use for the basis of a vaccine, but Levy expressed skepticism about vaccine development. "I don't think these viruses raise any vaccine issues that aren't already raised," he said. "It's more relevant to treatment. We've got to figure out why these two don't kill cells, and maybe we could stop the ones that do kill. And we have to figure out how in hell a virus that doesn't kill cells causes such a terrible disease."
Levy said these findings will force scientists to come up with new explanations for the effects of the HIV virus. He suggested that researchers stop focusing so much on figuring out how the virus kills cells. Instead, Levy said, looking at ways the virus disrupts body functions could lead to effective treatments.
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