STATISTICAL ASSESSMENT OF ASSOCIATION BETWEEN GENOMIC AND IMMUNE RESPONSE DYNAMICS: CLUES TO LENTIVIRUS PROTECTION
Open Access
Author:
Huso, Nicholas D
Area of Honors:
Statistics
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Francesca Chiaromonte, Thesis Supervisor Francesca Chiaromonte, Thesis Supervisor Mary Poss, Thesis Supervisor Dr. Ronald Albert Markle, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
HIV FIV Statisitics Genetics
Abstract:
Lentiviruses like the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) are a well recognized and important source of disease in both animal and human hosts. They typically induce a progressive decline of the host immune system, which leaves the host susceptible to other infections. Cats, harbor lentiviruses and exhibit symptoms similar to HIV. This allows researchers to use animal models to investigate factors affecting disease progression in a lentiviral infection. Two recent studies have shown that (i) the impact of a Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) infection can be attenuated if the cats are first infected with a strain of lentivirus derived from a wild cougar, and (ii) the lentiviral populations within cats subject to single (FIV only) and dual (FIV preceded by the wild cougar virus) infections undergo different evolutionary trajectories. The mechanisms underlying these differences are of great interest because of the implications they could have on our understanding and handling of lentiviral infections. In this thesis, a variety of statistical techniques are used to re-analyze some of the data collected in the two above mentioned studies. Focusing on two time points, (prior and following a bottleneck identified in the viral population) we investigate the association between changes in the host immune parameters and changes in the viral genome and how this association differs between single and dual infections.