Patrick O'Neil <patrick at corona> wrote:
>>> Patrick
The thought that a person with the right immune system
to defeat HIV might emerge is interesting. Couldn't it also
be possible that a human genome may acquire a defective HIV
and render the person resistant by classical viral mechanisms
such as superinfection resistance? In fact, one possible
explanation for the abundance of endogenous sequences in our
genomes could be that they were selected for by confering on their
original hosts resistance to infection? In fact, many of the
endogenous retroviruses you refer to are largely defective,
only capable (at one time) of expressing one or two viral
genes.
Elsewhere on this bulletin board someone mentioned long-term
survivors. You should check out the case studies (recent New Endg.
Journal of Med.) on long term HIV survivors who were thought to
be initially infected with a Nef deletion mutant.
Welkin
>>
