A within-host drug resistance model with continuous state-dependent viral strains

Abstract

Drug resistance can hamper the success of antiviral therapy for virus infection. Many mathematical models studying within-host drug resistance only consider two viral strains: wild-type (or drug-sensitive) and drug-resistant strains. However, the level of drug resistance can be continuous. Using HIV infection as an example, we developed a new within-host viral dynamic model that structures the virus population continuously on the basis of the level of drug resistance. We derived the basic reproduction number, which was shown to completely determine the global stability of the steady states. This model serves as a new continuous modeling framework to study the emergence and evolution of drug resistance during the therapy of virus infection.