Host-Pathogen Coevolution and the Emergence of Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies in Chronic Infections.

ABSTRACT: The vertebrate adaptive immune system provides a flexible and diverse set of molecules to neutralize pathogens. Yet, viruses such as HIV can cause chronic infections by evolving as quickly as the adaptive immune system, forming an evolutionary arms race. Here we introduce a mathematical framework to study the coevolutionary dynamics between antibodies and antigens within a host. We focus on changes in the binding interactions between the antibody and antigen populations, which result from the underlying stochastic evolution of genotype frequencies driven by mutation, selection, and drift. We identify the critical viral and immune parameters that determine the distribution of antibody-antigen binding affinities. We also identify definitive signatures of coevolution that measure the reciproc

SUBMITTER: Nourmohammad A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4956326 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature