A quantitative quasispecies theory-based model of virus escape mutation under immune selection.

ABSTRACT: Viral infections involve a complex interplay of the immune response and escape mutation of the virus quasispecies inside a single host. Although fundamental aspects of such a balance of mutation and selection pressure have been established by the quasispecies theory decades ago, its implications have largely remained qualitative. Here, we present a quantitative approach to model the virus evolution under cytotoxic T-lymphocyte immune response. The virus quasispecies dynamics are explicitly represented by mutations in the combined sequence space of a set of epitopes within the viral genome. We stochastically simulated the growth of a viral population originating from a single wild-type founder virus and its recognition and clearance by the immune response, as well as the expansion of its ge

SUBMITTER: Woo HJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3420195 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature