Effect of Mutation on Helper T-cells and Viral Population: A Computer Simulation Model for HIV

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-1-2000

Department

Physics and Astronomy

School

Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Abstract

A Monte Carlo simulation is proposed to study the dynamics of helper T-cells (N H) and viral (N V) populations in an immune response model relevant to HIV. Cellular states are binary variables and the interactions are described by logical expressions. Viral population shows a nonmonotonic growth before reaching a constant value while helper T-cells grow to a constant after a relaxation/reaction time. Initially, the population of helper cells grows with time with a power-law, N H ∼t β, before reaching the steady-state; the growth exponent β increases systematically (β ≈ 1 – 2) with the mutation rate (P mut≈0.1–0.4). The critical recovery time (t c) increases exponentially with the viral mutation, t c≈Ae αP mut , with α=4.52±0.29 in low mutation regime and α=15.21±1.41 in high mutation regime. The equilibrium population of helper T-cell declines slowly with P mut and collapses at ∼ 0.40; the viral population exhibits a reverse trend, i.e., a slow increase before the burst around the same mutation regime.

Publication Title

Theory in Biosciences

Volume

119

Issue

1

First Page

10

Last Page

19

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