Phylogenetic approach reveals that virus genotype largely determines HIV set-point viral load.

ABSTRACT: HIV virulence, i.e. the time of progression to AIDS, varies greatly among patients. As for other rapidly evolving pathogens of humans, it is difficult to know if this variance is controlled by the genotype of the host or that of the virus because the transmission chain is usually unknown. We apply the phylogenetic comparative approach (PCA) to estimate the heritability of a trait from one infection to the next, which indicates the control of the virus genotype over this trait. The idea is to use viral RNA sequences obtained from patients infected by HIV-1 subtype B to build a phylogeny, which approximately reflects the transmission chain. Heritability is measured statistically as the propensity for patients close in the phylogeny to exhibit similar infection trait values. The approach reve

SUBMITTER: Alizon S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2947993 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature