ANALYSIS OF A MODEL FOR THE PATHOGENESIS OF AIDS

According to a previously proposed mathematical model, the pathogenesi s of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) could be explained by t wo phenomena: direct human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection of C D4(+) T-cell populations and ongoing generation and selection of HIV m utants with increasing replicative capacity. In the present paper, the results obtained with this model are described in more detail. For di fferent values of biologically interpretable parameters, the model pre dicts very different patterns of CD4(+) T-cell decline after primary i nfection. With the assumption of a variability of 10% to 25% of three parameters between infected individuals, the model yields a realistic distribution curve of the incubation period to AIDS. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.