久久久无码人妻精品无码_6080YYY午夜理论片中无码_性无码专区_无码人妻品一区二区三区精99

Medieval plague may explain resistance to HIV
(Journal of Medical Genetics)
Updated: 2005-03-11 10:41

The persistent epidemics of hemorrhagic fever that struck Europe during the Middle Ages provided the selection pressures that have made 10 percent of Europeans resistant to HIV infection, according to a UK study.

Activists light candles to promote AIDS awareness. A resistance to the HIV/AIDS virus shown by some Europeans might be a genetic legacy of plague outbreaks which swept through the continent centuries ago, a report said. [AFP]

A mutation called delta-32 in the cellular receptor dubbed CCR5 protects against HIV infection, and is found more often in Europeans than other populations.

Scientists have previously suggested that the genetic mutation became common because it protected people against the Black Death or smallpox epidemics, while those with normal CCR5 were wiped out.

But researchers at the University of Liverpool in England said computer modeling, based on the changing demographics of Europe from 1000 to 1800 AD, showed how hemorrhagic fever forced up the frequency of this mutation from 1 in 20,000 at the time of the Black Death to values today of 1 in 10.

The researchers note in the Journal of Medical Genetics that lethal, viral hemorrhagic fevers were recorded in the Nile valley from 1500 BC and were followed by the plagues of Mesopotamia (700-450 BC), the plague of Athens (430 BC), the plague of Justinian (AD 541-700) and the plagues of the early Islamic empire (AD 627-744).

The European plagues from 1347 to 1665 were also a continuing series of hemorrhagic infections caused by a virus that used the CCR5 as an entry port into the immune system, the researchers explain.

Although plague passed its peak after the Great Plague of London in 1665, the researchers said it did not disappear completely.

Professor Christopher Duncan, from the University's School of Biological Sciences, added: "Hemorrhagic plague did not disappear after the Great Plague of London in 1665-66 but continued in Sweden, Copenhagen, Russia, Poland and Hungary until 1800.

"This maintenance of hemorrhagic plague provided continuing selection pressure on the mutation and explains why it (the CCR5-delta-32 mutation) occurs today at its highest frequency in Scandinavia and Russia."

Close

Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston 'back together' Anita Mui eternal in wax, and loving memory Zhou Xun as magazine cover girl

Today's Top News     Top Life News
Farming sets goals to raise productivity         HK Chief Executive Tung offers to resign         Steps to narrow rich-poor gap needed         Peninsula likely to top Rice's first visit         Money talks in capturing drug suspect         Suicide bomber kills 47 at Iraq funeral	Medieval plague may explain resistance to HIV       Trio accused of killing Hong Kong TV executive       Don't rewrite history if you want healthy relationship       Violin maker pulls the right strings       Diving queen Guo Jingjing promotes McDonald's in US       Wearing kimono gets you Kyoto rides, for free