TWiV 11: Elite controllers, mosquitoes, and winter vomiting

December 13, 2008

Host: Vincent Racaniello

Guests: Alan Dove and Jeremy Luban

Vincent, Alan, and Jeremy discuss why certain AIDS patients, called ‘elite controllers’ or ‘long-term non-progressors’, do not develop disease, why mosquitoes infected with Sindbis virus remain healthy, and the continuing outbreaks of norovirus gastroenteritis.

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Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #11 (62.6 MB .mp3, 68 minutes)

Links for this episode:

  • Immunity article on elite controllers.
  • PNAS article on protected mosquitoes.
  • The word quarantine comes from the seventeenth century Venetian quarantena, which means forty day period.

Science podcast pick of the week: The Mr. Science Show
Science book of the week: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis. Click here to see a page from my Mother’s marked-up copy. She was a high school English teacher.

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  • http://cantmakeadifference.blogspot.com Steven

    The topic of long-term non-progressors is really interesting. What is it about these individuals that allow them to survive with the virus and not develop AIDS?

    I remember reading a few years ago that throughout northern Europe a percentage of individuals have CCR5-Δ32 which is a variant of the CCR5 HIV coreceptor and that CCR5-Δ32 seems to confer protection against HIV . Wikipedia confirmed my memory regarding the reason for this when I read “It has been hypothesized that this allele was favoured by natural selection during the Black Death, but this is unlikely, given that the frequency of CCR5-Δ32 in Bronze Age samples is similar to that seen today..” here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5.

    So it turns out that the “multiple plague hypothesis”(as I am calling it) is not supported.

    What do you think the reason is for the CCR5-Δ32 prevalence in the northern European populations?

  • profvrr

    It has been reported that CCR5 (and other chemokine receptors) can facilitate infection by myxoma virus , vaccinia virus, and other poxviruses. (Lalani, A. et al. use of chemokine receptors by poxviruses. Science 286:1968-1971. 1999). If true for variola (smallpox virus), then smallpox is the leading candidate for the selective pressure responsible for fixation of the CCR5delta 32 HIV-resistance allele in modern Caucasians. Perhaps the survivors of smallpox epidemics are “enriched” for CCR5 mutations.

  • http://www.virology.ws profvrr

    It has been reported that CCR5 (and other chemokine receptors) can facilitate infection by myxoma virus , vaccinia virus, and other poxviruses. (Lalani, A. et al. use of chemokine receptors by poxviruses. Science 286:1968-1971. 1999). If true for variola (smallpox virus), then smallpox is the leading candidate for the selective pressure responsible for fixation of the CCR5delta 32 HIV-resistance allele in modern Caucasians. Perhaps the survivors of smallpox epidemics are “enriched” for CCR5 mutations.