Virus dynamics in the presence of synaptic transmission

Traditionally, virus dynamics models consider populations of infected and target cells, and a population of free virus that can infect susceptible cells. In recent years, however, it has become. clear that direct cell-to-cell transmission can also play an important role for the in vivo spread of viruses, especially retroviruses such as human T lymphotropic virus-1 (HTLV-1) and Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Such cell-to-cell transmission is thought to occur through the formation of virological synapses that are formed between an infected source cell and a susceptible target cell. Here we formulate and analyze a class of virus dynamics models that include such cell–cell synaptic transmission. We explore different “strategies” of the virus defined by the number of viruses passed per synapse, and determine how the choice of strategy influences the basic reproductive ratio, R0R0, of the virus and thus its ability to establish a persistent infection. We show that depending on specific assumptions about the viral kinetics, strategies with low or intermediate numbers of viruses transferred may correspond to the highest values of R0R0. We also explore the evolutionary competition of viruses of different strains, which differ by their synaptic strategy, and show that viruses characterized by synaptic strategies with the highest R0R0 win the evolutionary competition and exclude other, inferior, strains.

► Viruses can spread from cell to cell through virological synapses.
► This can influence basic virus dynamics.
► This is investigated with a new mathematical model.
► Effect on the basic reproductive ratio and virus load are examined.
► Competition dynamics of viruses is investigated.