Publication: Struggle for space: viral extinction through competition for cells
Loading...
Identifiers
Publication date
2011-01-14
Defense date
Advisors
Tutors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Impact
Export
Abstract
The design of protocols to suppress the propagation of viral infections is an enduring enterprise, especially hindered by limited knowledge of the mechanisms leading to viral extinction. Here we report on infection extinction due to intraspecific competition to infect susceptible hosts. Beneficial mutations increase the production of viral progeny, while the host cell may develop defenses against infection. For an unlimited number of host cells, a feedback runaway coevolution between host resistance and progeny production occurs. However, physical space limits the advantage that the virus obtains from increasing offspring numbers; thus, infection clearance may result from an increase in host defenses beyond a finite threshold. Our results might be relevant to devise improved control strategies in environments with mobility constraints or different geometrical properties.
Description
Keywords
Error catastrophe, Virus populations, Evolution, Supperssion, Percolation, Infectivity, Resistance, Threshold, Genetics
Bibliographic citation
Physical review letters, 106 (2), pp. 028104