Analyzing Human Cytomegalovirus GenotypeDiversity by Modelling Viral Population Dynamics

Some viruses including the widespread human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) show a high level of genetic diversity within hosts and across the whole virus population even in relatively conserved genomic regions. To investigate how this diversity is formed, we earlier introduced and analyzed a population model for neutrally evolving viruses that persist in their hosts and are capable of reinfection, mutation and recombination. Based on these results, we fit our model to observed genotype frequencies from Austrian HCMV patients. Despite simply assuming neutral evolution, the model captures the data closely. The inferred parameters are discussed and may give insights about the roles of viral replication, reinfection, mutation and recombination for the evolution of HCMV.