TheH43Y variant of TRIM5α gene might protect against HIV-1 infection in Chinese intravenous drug users, suggested LIU Fengliang, a Ph.D. candidate at Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

TRIM5α has species-specific restriction activity against HIV-1, the most common and pathogenic strain of virus. Though human also express TRIM5α protein, it is less potent in suppressing HIV-1infection than most orthologs of other nonhuman primates. Previous study showed that polymorphisms in TRIM5α gene might protect against HIV-1 infection. However, the exact variation accounting for this protective effect was not certain.

LIU and his supervisors did investigation for sequence variations in TRIM5α and their relations with HIV-1 resistance by sampling Chinese intravenous drug users (IDUs), including 1011 Hans and 283 Dai subjects.

Their results show that the frequency of H43Y in seronegative Chinese intravenous drug users is significantly higher than that in those HIV-1-infected drug users, implying that the H43Y of TRIM5α gene might account for the HIV-1 resistance.

LIU’s findings have been published in the journal of JAIDS (56:306-311, 2011). For the abstract of the paper, please visit http://journals.lww.com/jaids/Abstract/2011/04010/An_HIV_1_Resistance_Polymorphism_in_TRIM5__Gene.3.aspx