BIOL266 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Thought Experiment, Sooty Mangabey, Vpu Protein
20 Mar 2018
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Goal: understand evolution and hiv; hiv will demonstrate how evolutionary biologists study adaptation and diversity. The natural history of the hiv epidemic: hiv recognized in 1981, and is responsible for 3. 1% of all deaths worldwide. It is an intracellular parasite, not able to reproduce by itself. How does the immune system react to hiv: dendritic cells capture virus and present bits of its proteins to na ve helper t cells. Why does hiv therapy using just one drug ultimately fail: azt is incorporated by hiv"s reverse transcriptase into the viral dna strand, where the drug prevents the enzyme from adding more nucleotides. However, alterations in the structure of reverse transcriptase can make viral replication less vulnerable to disruption: after a few years of azt use, patients stopped responding to treatment. Does azt alter the patient"s physiology: azt could lose its effectiveness in either or both of two ways, patient"s own cellular physiology could change.
