Thresholds and bistability in HIV infection models with oxidative stress

TL;DR

This paper integrates oxidative stress into HIV infection models to analyze its impact on virus persistence, revealing bistability, rebound, and control thresholds through mathematical and numerical analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel HIV model incorporating oxidative stress, demonstrating bistability and thresholds affecting virus dynamics, supported by bifurcation analysis.

Findings

Existence of bistable intervals with rebound and control thresholds

Oxidative stress influences virus persistence and immune response

Numerical simulations illustrate complex viral dynamics

Abstract

Oxidative stress, a reaction caused by the imbalance between the reactive oxygen species of human organism and its ability to detoxify reactive intermediates and to repair the resulting damage plays an important role in HIV-infections. On one hand, HIV infection is responsible for the chronic oxidative stress of the patients. On the other hand, the oxidative stress contributions to the HIV disease pathogenesis. In this paper, we integrate oxidative stress into an HIV infection model to investigate its effects on the virus dynamics. Through mathematical analysis, we obtain the basic reproduction number R0 of the model which describes the persistence of viruses. In particular, we show that for R0 > 1, the model has a bistable interval with virus rebound threshold and elite control threshold. Numerical simulations and bifurcation analysis are presented to illustrate the viral dynamics under oxidative stress. Our investigation reveals the interplay between viruses and the reaction of human organism including immune response and oxidative stress, and their effects on the health of human being.