The world's first wiki where authorship really matters (Nature Genetics, 2008). Due credit and reputation for authors. Imagine a global collaborative knowledge base for original thoughts. Search thousands of articles and collaborate with scientists around the globe.

wikigene or wiki gene protein drug chemical gene disease author authorship tracking collaborative publishing evolutionary knowledge reputation system wiki2.0 global collaboration genes proteins drugs chemicals diseases compound
Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)
 
 
 

Novel alleles of the chemokine-receptor gene CCR5.

The CCR5 gene encodes a cell-surface chemokine-receptor molecule that serves as a coreceptor for macrophage-tropic strains of HIV-1. Mutations in this gene may alter expression or function of the protein product, thereby altering chemokine binding/signaling or HIV-1 infection of cells that normally express CCR5 protein. Indeed, homozygotes for a 32-bp deletion allele of CCR5 (CCR5-delta 32), which causes a frameshift at amino acid 185, are relatively resistant to HIV-1 infection. Here we report the identification of 16 additional mutations in the coding region of the CCR5 gene, all but 3 of which are codon altering or "nonsynonymous." Most mutations were rare (found only once or twice in the sample); five were detected exclusively among African Americans, whereas eight were observed only in Caucasians. The mutations included 11 codon-altering nonsynonymous variants, one trinucleotide deletion, one chain-termination mutant, and three synonymous mutations. The high predominance of codon-altering alleles among CCR5 mutants (14/17 [81%], including CCR5-delta 32) is consistent with an adaptive accumulation of function-altering alleles for this gene, perhaps as a consequence of historic selective pressures.[1]

References

  1. Novel alleles of the chemokine-receptor gene CCR5. Carrington, M., Kissner, T., Gerrard, B., Ivanov, S., O'Brien, S.J., Dean, M. Am. J. Hum. Genet. (1997) [Pubmed]
 
WikiGenes - Universities