Abstract
TRIMming SIV Transmission between Species
Highlights
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS, did not originate in humans
simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) have jumped between different primate populations, both in the wild and in animals kept in captivity for research purposes
Just how SIV was able to gain a toehold in new, genetically distinct species has been something of a puzzle; laboratory experiments suggest that there exist several host genes that should, in theory, pose a formidable barrier to interspecies viral transmission
Summary
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS, did not originate in humans. The most common variant, HIV1, is thought to have originated as a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in apes and to have jumped the species barrier from apes to humans sometime in the first half of the 20th century. Just how SIV was able to gain a toehold in new, genetically distinct species has been something of a puzzle; laboratory experiments suggest that there exist several host genes that should, in theory, pose a formidable barrier to interspecies viral transmission.
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