Estimating the Respective Contributions of Human and Viral Genetic Variation to HIV Control

PLoS Comput Biol. 2017 Feb 9;13(2):e1005339. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005339. eCollection 2017 Feb.

Abstract

We evaluated the fraction of variation in HIV-1 set point viral load attributable to viral or human genetic factors by using joint host/pathogen genetic data from 541 HIV infected individuals. We show that viral genetic diversity explains 29% of the variation in viral load while host factors explain 8.4%. Using a joint model including both host and viral effects, we estimate a total of 30% heritability, indicating that most of the host effects are reflected in viral sequence variation.

MeSH terms

  • AIDS Vaccines / therapeutic use
  • Genetic Association Studies / methods
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease / genetics
  • Genetic Variation / genetics
  • Genome, Human / genetics*
  • Genome, Viral / genetics*
  • HIV / genetics*
  • HIV Infections / genetics*
  • HIV Infections / therapy
  • Host-Pathogen Interactions / genetics
  • Humans
  • Models, Genetic*
  • Viral Load / genetics*

Substances

  • AIDS Vaccines

Grants and funding

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.