| Since Schnweewind hadn't been enthusiastic about being quoted, I replied by asking Dr. Desrosiers, "Are you sure you want [us] to quote you as in your e-mail." Desrosiers: "YES." (e-mail, March 12, 2003) I responded: "You seem to be thinking of HIV. [I] tried Google search with the phrase, CD4 receptor. The majority of the search-result authors seemed to think, as you do, of receptor sites being located on HIV. However a numerically significant minority thought of the CD4 molecule itself as a receptor." "So," I continued, "the designation of what is or is not a receptor seems arbitrary. And there is no noun (we do not think receptee is in the dictionary) to designate that to which the receptor attaches. "For gender--determination purposes we still think the direction of movement of nucleic acid is the determining aspect." I later learned that to designate that to which a recptor attaches, one uses the word "ligand." The CD4 molecule, mentioned above, will be referred to again later in this discussion: certain cells in the immune system are characterized by having that molecule on their surfaces and so are named "CD4 cells." HIV attaches to those molecules as a necessary step to: (a) HIV entering the CD4 cells and then (b) HIV replicating within the CD4 cells. CONTINUE |
| �All viruses are female because their receptor binding sites are located recessed in a cavity.� Dr. Ronald Desrosiers |