High Heritability Is Compatible with the Broad Distribution of Set Point Viral Load in HIV Carriers

PLoS Pathogens

Christophe Fraser¹  Sebastian Bonhoeffer²  Gabriel E. Leventhal² 

[1] Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom;Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

关键词: Heredity;    Viral load;    Viral evolution;    Evolutionary immunology;    HIV;    Normal distribution;    Host-pathogen interactions;    Genome-wide association studies;   

DOI  :  10.1371/journal.ppat.1004634

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Public Library of Science

【 摘 要 】

Set point viral load in HIV patients ranges over several orders of magnitude and is a key determinant of disease progression in HIV. A number of recent studies have reported high heritability of set point viral load implying that viral genetic factors contribute substantially to the overall variation in viral load. The high heritability is surprising given the diversity of host factors associated with controlling viral infection. Here we develop an analytical model that describes the temporal changes of the distribution of set point viral load as a function of heritability. This model shows that high heritability is the most parsimonious explanation for the observed variance of set point viral load. Our results thus not only reinforce the credibility of previous estimates of heritability but also shed new light onto mechanisms of viral pathogenesis.

【 授权许可】

CC BY