Revisiting Early Models of the host-pathogen interactions in HIV infection

Abstract

The interactions between infectious pathogens and the immune system have been mathematically modeled for numerous diseases. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the agent that causes AIDS, has been modeled most extensively. In 1986, three years after HIV was isolated, investigators produced the first mathematical description of its pathogenesis. Since that time modelers have steadily developed more sophisticated systems that have brought the field of mathematical modeling to the consciousness of virologists and immunologists. In this paper we review five of the first attempts of modeling HIV and the immune system. We consider these models in their own right as predictors for CD4+ T-cell depletion and viral growth, as records of the immunovirological understanding of the day, and as forerunners of the current generation of models.