Presence of long-term stable quasispecies of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 inferred using a quasi-steady-state multiscale model

摘要

Mathematical modeling studies are useful for an improved understanding of the dynamics of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection dynamics. Mutations are considered to facilitate the escape of HIV-1 from the immune system and anti-HIV-1 drugs. Thus, quasispecies, populations of closely related virus variants, are important in HIV-1 infection. Recently, a multiscale model incorporating both intracellular viral genome replication and extracellular viral infection was developed to study viral dynamics. A multiscale model has also been developed for analyzing HIV-1 infection. However, the multiscale model could not reveal high quasispecies diversity. Herein, I present a new quasi-steady-state multiscale model of HIV-1 infection that incorporates a quasi-steady state among the virion, uninfected cell, and virion–uninfected cell complex similar to that among the enzyme, substrate, and enzyme–substrate complex in enzyme kinetics. This new model can reveal stable quasispecies better than the previously described multiscale model. The model and the strategy to calculate the model might be useful in the field of demographics where multiscale models are used. For HIV-1 infection, the model might be useful for analyzing and predicting the breakthrough of drug-resistant mutants in the future.