The Role of Recombination for the Coevolutionary Dynamics of HIV and the Immune Response

Open access
Datum
2011-02-18Typ
- Journal Article
ETH Bibliographie
yes
Altmetrics
Abstract
The evolutionary implications of recombination in HIV remain not fully understood. A plausible effect could be an enhancement of immune escape from cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs). In order to test this hypothesis, we constructed a population dynamic model of immune escape in HIV and examined the viral-immune dynamics with and without recombination. Our model shows that recombination (i) increases the genetic diversity of the viral population, (ii) accelerates the emergence of escape mutations with and without compensatory mutations, and (iii) accelerates the acquisition of immune escape mutations in the early stage of viral infection. We see a particularly strong impact of recombination in systems with broad, non-immunodominant CTL responses. Overall, our study argues for the importance of recombination in HIV in allowing the virus to adapt to changing selective pressures as imposed by the immune system and shows that the effect of recombination depends on the immunodominance pattern of effector T cell responses. Mehr anzeigen
Persistenter Link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000030521Publikationsstatus
publishedExterne Links
Zeitschrift / Serie
PLoS ONEBand
Seiten / Artikelnummer
Verlag
PLOSOrganisationseinheit
03584 - Bonhoeffer, Sebastian / Bonhoeffer, Sebastian
ETH Bibliographie
yes
Altmetrics