AIDS: 'Natural killer' clue to virus vulnerability

Individuals with key variants in an important immune cell and a molecule that controls it show a slower progression to AIDS after they are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a study released on Sunday says. Natural killers are switched on or off by receptors, or docking sites, on their surface. The receptors are activated by a molecule presented to the cell by the immune system's signallers. Researchers led by Mary Carrington of the United States' National Cancer Institute, Maryland, looked at variants in two genes -- one that creates a receptor named KIR3DL1, and one that creates a signalling molecule called HLA-B. In a study of 1,500 people with HIV, they found that individuals who had specific variants in both genes were helped "significantly and strongly," progressing to AIDS much later than counterparts without these variants and also having lower levels of virus in the blood.... Whole article "PhysOrg":[ http://www.physorg.com/news98290620.html]

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