The Effect of Interference on the CD8(+) T Cell Escape Rates in HIV.

ABSTRACT: In early human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, the virus population escapes from multiple CD8(+) cell responses. The later an escape mutation emerges, the slower it outgrows its competition, i.e., the escape rate is lower. This pattern could indicate that the strength of the CD8(+) cell responses is waning, or that later viral escape mutants carry a larger fitness cost. In this paper, we investigate whether the pattern of decreasing escape rates could also be caused by genetic interference among different escape strains. To this end, we developed a mathematical multi-epitope model of HIV dynamics, which incorporates stochastic effects, recombination, and mutation. We used cumulative linkage disequilibrium measures to quantify the amount of interference. We found that nearly synchro

SUBMITTER: Garcia V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4292734 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature