SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- New research out of Stanford University is changing the history book on AIDS. Now, it appears that a virus connected to HIV appears to be millions of years older than previously believed.
KCBS’ Susan Leigh Taylor Reports
Viruses like HIV are capable of entering the genomes of the species they infect. Progress in primate genome sequencing projects led to the discovery of a virus very similar to HIV in the genome of the gray mouse lemur. This lemur is a squirrel-sized primate that lives exclusively on the island nation of Madagascar, which is a fact that plays an important role in determining the age of the virus.
"Madagascar is geographically and biologically very isolated, and it's not really clear how these viruses could be present there, and in primates in Africa unless the viruses are in fact, many millions of years old," said Robert Gifford, a senior research associate at Oxford University, and a post-doctoral researcher in infectious diseases.
He led this new study, which pegs HIV-related viruses to be somewhere between 14 to 85 million years old. As vague as that may sound, the finding could aid in drug development by pinpointing those features of the virus that remain fixed through its long evolution. Any vulnerability in fixed features of the virus could be the target for new AIDS drugs.
(MGO)
