The evolutionary dynamics of human Influenza A virus presents a challenging theoretical problem. An extremely high mutation rate allows the virus to escape, at each epidemic season, the host immune protection elicited by previous infections. At the same time, at each given epidemic season a single quasi-species, that is a set of closely related strains, is observed. A non-trivial relation between the genetic (i.e., at the sequence level) and the antigenic (i.e., related to the host immune response) distances can shed light into this puzzle. In this paper we introduce a model in which, in accordance with experimental observations, a simple interaction rule based on spatial correlations among point mutations dynamically defines an immunity space in the space of sequences. We investigate the static and dynamic structure of this space and we discuss how it affects the dynamics of the virus-host interaction. Interestingly we observe a staggered time structure in the virus evolution as in the real Influenza evolutionary dynamics. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2013
Dynamical correlations in the escape strategy of Influenza A virus / Taggi, L.; Colaiori, F.; Loreto, Vittorio; Tria, Francesca. - In: EUROPHYSICS LETTERS. - ISSN 0295-5075. - ELETTRONICO. - 101:6(2013), p. 68003. [10.1209/0295-5075/101/68003]
Dynamical correlations in the escape strategy of Influenza A virus
L. Taggi;LORETO, Vittorio;TRIA, FRANCESCA
2013
Abstract
The evolutionary dynamics of human Influenza A virus presents a challenging theoretical problem. An extremely high mutation rate allows the virus to escape, at each epidemic season, the host immune protection elicited by previous infections. At the same time, at each given epidemic season a single quasi-species, that is a set of closely related strains, is observed. A non-trivial relation between the genetic (i.e., at the sequence level) and the antigenic (i.e., related to the host immune response) distances can shed light into this puzzle. In this paper we introduce a model in which, in accordance with experimental observations, a simple interaction rule based on spatial correlations among point mutations dynamically defines an immunity space in the space of sequences. We investigate the static and dynamic structure of this space and we discuss how it affects the dynamics of the virus-host interaction. Interestingly we observe a staggered time structure in the virus evolution as in the real Influenza evolutionary dynamics. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2013I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.