Monkey food in the genesis of AIDS

2003/07/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Genetika

The origin of the main virus causing AIDS (HIV-1) remains unresolved, but an article published in the journal Science provides new indications.

Scientists have long believed that the AIDS virus was born by jumping the virus (SIV) into humans that causes acquired immunodeficiency in monkeys. Now, in this article, researchers at the British University of Nottingham propose how the virus was transformed and transmitted.

In fact, researchers have studied the genetic sequence of viruses such as VII-1 and monkeys, and based on this it seems that the pioneer of VII-1 in humans passed by eating monkeys meat.

On the other hand, it is considered that this pioneer emerged from the mixture of two SIV strains that infect two species of primates. Apparently, the virus happened when one species ate the other, and when mixing the genomes of the viruses of both appeared the variant that managed to jump the man.

However, they do not know for sure whether the confusion gave the virus the ability to transmit it to humans, and they believe that this can happen randomly. In addition, they do not know if the pioneering virus was mutated after the human jump or became a virus similar to GIB-1 before reaching the human being. Therefore, there are still many questions to answer.