Novel method provides higher estimates of the escape rates for most of early escapes in 4 HIV-infected patients.

We use experimental data on kinetics of HIV escape from multiple CTL responses (see Fig 1) and estimate escape rates using Eq (3) with parameters given in the ranges in Table 4. Column “single epitope” denotes estimate of the escape rate assuming independent escape using Eq (1). Column “previous” denotes values of escape rates as estimated in previous publications [13, 20]. All putative epitopes are supported by ELISpot assays or HLA association except for ENV830 in CH58. All estimates of the escape rates are given in day−1 units.