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

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.

本研究借助541名HIV感染者的宿主-病原体联合遗传数据，对HIV-1设定点病毒载量（set point viral load）的变异中可归因于病毒或人类遗传因素的比例进行了评估。结果表明，病毒遗传多样性可解释29%的病毒载量变异，宿主因素则可解释8.4%的变异。通过构建纳入宿主与病毒效应的联合模型，我们估算得到总遗传力为30%，这提示大多数宿主效应可通过病毒序列变异得到体现。