title: Stochastic modelling of viral blips in HIV-1-infected patients: effects of inhomogeneous density fluctuations.
abstract: We propose a stochastic model of HIV-1 infection dynamics under HAART in order to analyse the origin and dynamics of the so-called viral blips, i.e. episodes of transient viremia that occur in the phase of where the disease remains in a latent state during which the viral load raises above the detection limit of standard clinical assays. Based on prior work in the subject, we consider an infection model in which latently infected cell compartment sustains a residual (latent) infection over long periods of time. Unlike previous models, we include the effects of inhomogeneities in cell and virus concentration in the blood stream. We further consider the effect of burst virion production. By comparing with the experimental results obtained during a study in which intensive sampling was carried out on HIV-1-infected patients undergoing HAART over a long period of time, we conclude that our model supports the hypothesis that viral blips are consistent with random fluctuations around the average viral load. We further observe that agreement between our simulation results and the blip statistics obtained in the aforementioned study improves when burst virion production is considered. We also study the effect of sample manipulation artifacts on the results produced by our model, in particular, that of the post-extraction handling time, i.e. the time elapsed between sample extraction and actual test. Our results support the notion that the statistics of viral blips can be critically affected by such artifacts.
authors: Centre de Recerca Matemàtica, Edifici C, Campus de Bellaterra, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain; Departament de Matemàtica Aplicada i Anàlisi, Universitat de Barcelona, 08007 Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: dsanchez@crm.cat.
authors: Daniel
authors: D
authors: Sánchez-Taltavull
authors: Centre de Recerca Matemàtica, Edifici C, Campus de Bellaterra, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain; Departament de Matemàtiques, Universitat Atonòma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain.
authors: Tomás
authors: T
authors: Alarcón
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000821:virology*; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D009716:Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted; D013269:Stochastic Processes; D014771:Virion / Q000502:physiology
keywords: HAART; Laboratory procedures; Latent infection; Viral persistence; Viral replication