Lele Zhao, Chris Wymant, François Blanquart, Tanya Golubchik, Astrid Gall, Margreet Bakker, Daniela Bezemer, Matthew Hall, Swee Hoe Ong, Jan Albert, Norbert Bannert, Jacques Fellay, M Kate Grabowski, Barbara Gunsenheimer-Bartmeyer, Huldrych F Günthard, Pia Kivelä, Roger D Kouyos, Oliver Laeyendecker, Laurence Meyer, Kholoud Porter, Ard van Sighem, Marc van der Valk, Ben Berkhout, Paul Kellam, Marion Cornelissen, Peter Reiss, Christophe Fraser, Luca Ferretti
Set-point viral load (SPVL), a common measure of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 virulence, is partially determined by viral genotype. Epidemiological evidence suggests that this viral property has been under stabilising selection, with a typical optimum for the virus between 104 and 105 copies of viral RNA per ml. Here we aimed to detect transmission fitness differences between viruses from individuals with different SPVLs directly from phylogenetic trees inferred from whole-genome sequences. We used the local branching index (LBI) as a proxy for transmission fitness...
2022: Virus Evolution