Gene change raises odds of mother-to-child HIV transmission

Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - 01:00 in Health & Medicine

A correlation has been discovered between specific variants of the gene that codes for a key immune system protein, TLR9, and the risk of mother-to-child, or vertical, transmission of HIV. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access Journal of Translational Medicine studied three hundred children born to HIV-positive mothers, finding that those who had either of two TLR9 gene variants were significantly more likely to acquire the virus.

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