Scientists Bring New Insights into the Heritability of HIV Infection Severity

The study investigated the heritability of three different aspects of HIV virulence: set point viral load (SPVL; which measures the virus' ability to exploit the host by measuring the amount of HIV circulating in the blood), CD4+ T cell decline (which measures the damage caused by the virus), and CD4+ T cell decline relative to set point viral load (which measures the damage for a given level of exploitation, also called 'per pathogen pathogenicity' or PPP). Per-pathogen pathogenicity captures how virulent a viral strain is irrespective of its load in the infected individual.