Two new studies found genetic mutations that cause severe immune deficiencies are common in some remote populations, leaving them highly vulnerable to viruses.
have been documented, with no signs of that number slowing down. “Every day, we discover more,” says Ivan Zanoni, an immunologist at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital.
However, this time the mutation was in the gene that codes for IFNAR1, another protein that binds with type I interferons. They decided to test if this genetic variant might be of West Polynesian origin, through the founder effect, and so analyzed populations across the Pacific, from Taiwan to the eastern part of French Polynesia. “To our great surprise, we found that the allele is indeed Polynesian,” Casanova says.
The biggest surprise, Casanova says, is that even without type I interferons, individuals might still be able to deal with lots of viruses. If it was the case that these proteins were essential in fighting off all viral infections, these IFNAR1 or IFNAR2 mutations wouldn't become so common in remote populations, he argues.
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