-Caveat Lector- (Not the green monkey anymore? Sounds like: not a weather balloon, but a mogul balloon! (Maybe someone with AIDs has been having their way with chimpanzees?) --SW) Experts conclude AIDS virus originated from chimps Copyright � 1999 Nando Media Copyright � 1999 Associated Press By DANIEL Q. HANEY CHICAGO (January 31, 1999 3:30 p.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - Where did the AIDS virus come from? Scientists think they have traced its origin to the long-suspected source: chimpanzees. In a presentation Sunday, researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham said they have convincing proof that the virus has spread on at least three separate occasions from chimpanzees to people in Africa. One of these cross-species transmissions was the start of the epidemic that now infects about 35 million people worldwide. Chimps, which have probably carried the virus for hundreds of thousands of years, apparently do not get sick from it. Figuring out why could be important. "This is excellent science with biological and virological importance. If we understood how the chimp has dealt with this infection over time, that could have implications for human medicine," said Kevin DeCock, an AIDS expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. While chimps have long been suspected as the source, "there have been a lot of loose ends that made people uncomfortable drawing that conclusion," said Beatrice Hahn. Whatever its origins, HIV is a recent affliction of people. At last year's Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, David Ho and others from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Rockefeller University presented evidence that the virus probably first infected humans in the 1940s or early '50s. At the opening of this year's meeting, Hahn made the case that this event almost certainly occurred in west equatorial Africa when someone caught the virus from a chimp, perhaps after killing the animal for food. Hahn said her team nailed down the connection by analyzing frozen tissue saved from a chimp named Marilyn that died from complications of childbirth at a U.S. Air Force primate center 14 years ago. The chimp version of the AIDS virus - the microbe now thought to be the grandfather of HIV - is called SIVcpz. It is extremely rare among chimps in U.S. lab colonies, apparently because these animals are removed from the wild as babies and so are never exposed to the virus sexually. Until recently, SIVcpz had been isolated only three times. The fourth turned up when a colleague cleaning out a lab freezer ran across Marilyn's specimens and sent them to Hahn. Her team was able to perform various kinds of genetic analysis that were unavailable when the chimp died. Then the Alabama team used molecular analysis techniques to study all four examples of the virus. They found that three of the four were genetically extremely similar to the human AIDS virus. They included one gene, called vpu, that also is part of HIV but not of other AIDS-like viruses that infect monkeys. All three samples came from Pan troglodytes troglodytes, which is one of the four subspecies of chimp in Africa. These animals live in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo and Central African Republic, the region where AIDS is thought to have started. The fourth sample, much less like HIV, came from another subspecies of chimp that is native to East Africa. Among humans, there are three major groups of HIV, code-named M, N and O. M is the variety that has spread around the world, while N and O are seen only in west-central Africa. The natural habitat of Pan troglodytes troglodytes exactly overlaps the area where these three groups were first recognized. The researchers believe that each group arose from a separate chimp-to-human transmission of SIVcpz. "We conclude that this subspecies is the natural host and reservoir for HIV- 1," the AIDS virus, said Hahn, whose work is also being published in this week's issue of the journal Nature. She said a French team, headed by Phillippe Mauclere of the Pasteur Institute, recently found three more chimps infected with SIVcpz at a game sanctuary in Cameroon. One sample has been genetically analyzed and it, too, closely resembles HIV. "That nails it," said Hahn. "The only possible criticism is that we had made too much out of four animals." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steve Wingate California Director SKYWATCH INTERNATIONAL Today's Midi http://www.anomalous-images.com/Run_Like_Hell_2_(Pink_Floyd).mid Anomalous Images Bulletin Board http://www.anomalous-images.com/wwwboard.html Anomalous Images and UFO Files http://www.anomalous-images.com DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. 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