Saturday, January 16, 2010

how long does it take for HIV/AIDS to mutate the cells they mutate

how long does it take for HIV/AIDS to mutate the cells they mutate?
seconds, minutes?
Infectious Diseases - 2 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Everyone's immune system is different, but it can days, months, or years. Some people are carriers their whole lives but never develope full blown aids but just pass it on.
2 :
1. AIDS is a stage 4 HIV infection. The two terms are not interchangeable. You are speaking of the virus itself, not one of its stages. #2. HIV doesn't mutate cells. CD4 T-cells are the main target of the virus. CD4 is a protein on the surface of a T-cell. The protein, the antigen, on the surface of the HIV capsule is gp120 antigen and it is a mirror image of the CD4 protein. If HIV bumps into the right place on the T-cell's surface, the gp120 of the virus will lock onto the CD4 site of the T-cell. This will be the port of entry. The virus injects its capsule surrounded contents with the viral RNA and the reverse transcriptase inside of it into the T-cell. To make the rest of this short, once inside the T-cell, the capsule dissolves and the RNA and reverse transcriptase are free. In order to infect the cell, the viral RNA needs to travel into the T-cell's nucleus where it changes the rules and converts the cell into a virus factory. But the viral RNA needs to become DNA to start replicating. Reverse transcriptase allows the RNA to borrow material from the cell and to "write backwards" a chain of viral DNA. Once transformed, the viral DNA will travel into the T-cell's nucleus and attach itself to the cell's DNA. At this point, if the T-cell is activated, it will start producing new virus instead of performing normal T-cell functions. Eventually, the T-cell is destroyed and the new viruses move on to the next victims. It's hard to say how long this process takes. Sometimes the virus remains dormant for months or even years inside the T-cell. Sometimes the virus divides into 2 proviruses before replication begins. I can't tell you in second or minutes or hours but when it happens, it happens quickly.

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