Heritability of the HIV-1 reservoir size and decay under long-term suppressive ART. Nature Communications
The impact of the viral genome on the HIV-1 reservoir, i.e. its heritability, remains unknown. To address this question, Wan et al. aimed to investigate the heritability of the HIV-1 reservoir size and long-term decay using viral sequences and total HIV-1 DNA measurements from Swiss HIV Cohort Study (SHCS) participants infected with HIV-1 subtype B.
The authors investigated the heritability of the HIV-1 reservoir size and its long-term decay by analyzing the distribution of those traits on viral phylogenies from both partial-pol and viral near full-length genome sequences. They used a unique nationwide cohort of 610 well-characterized HIV-1 subtype-B infected individuals on suppressive ART for a median of 5.4 years.
They found that a moderate but significant fraction of the HIV-1 reservoir size at ~1.5 years after the initiation of ART was explained by viral genetic factors (at least 10% of the variability of the reservoir size could be explained by heritability by each of the models used. Some models also showed higher effects). Additionally, a tentative signal was also found for the decay of the viral reservoir 1.5-5.4 years after the initiation of ART using full-genome sequences, indicating that it was heritable in the corresponding study population. While the mechanisms underlying this heritability remain to be defined, the study-results indicate that the infecting HIV strain should be taken into consideration in future efforts to cure HIV.