| Abstract: |
| The dynamics of virus and immune response within a host can be viewed as a complex and evolving ecological system. For example, during HIV infection, an array of CTL immune response populations recognize specific epitopes (viral proteins) presented on the surface of infected cells to effectively mediate their killing. However HIV can rapidly evolve resistance to CTL attack at different epitopes, inducing a dynamic network of viral and immune response variants. We consider models for the network of virus and immune response populations. Our analysis provides insights on viral immune escape from multiple epitopes.
In the ``binary allele`` setting, we prove that if the viral fitness costs for gaining resistance to each of $n$ epitopes are equal and multiplicative, then the system of $2^n$ virus strains converges to a ``perfectly nested network`` with less than $n+1$ persistent virus strains. Overall, our results suggest that immunodominance is the most important factor determining viral escape pathway of HIV against multiple CTL populations. |
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