Global Dynamics of a Diffusive Within-Host HTLV/HIV Co-Infection Model with Latency

Abstract

In several publications, the dynamical system of HIV and HTLV mono-infections taking into account diffusion, as well as latently infected cells in cellular transmission has been mathematically analyzed. However, no work has been conducted on HTLV/HIV co-infection dynamics taking both factors into consideration. In this paper, a partial differential equations (PDEs) model of HTLV/HIV dual infection was developed and analyzed, considering the cells’ and viruses’ spatial mobility. CD4+T cells are the primary target of both HTLV and HIV. For HIV, there are three routes of transmission: free-to-cell (FTC), latent infected-to-cell (ITC), and active ITC. In contrast, HTLV transmits horizontally through ITC contact and vertically through the mitosis of active HTLV-infected cells. In the beginning, the well-posedness of the model was investigated by proving the existence of global solutions and the boundedness. Eight threshold parameters that determine the existence and stability of the eight equilibria of the model were obtained. Lyapunov functions together with the Lyapunov–LaSalle asymptotic stability theorem were used to investigate the global stability of all equilibria. Finally, the theoretical results were verified utilizing numerical simulations.

Keywords

• HTLV/HIV co-infection
• virus infection
• cell-to-cell infection
• mitotic transmission
• CTL immune response
• diffusion