Impact of HIV co-infection on the evolution and transmission of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The tuberculosis (TB) epidemic is fueled by a parallel Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) epidemic, but it remains unclear to what extent the HIV epidemic has been a driver for drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Here we assess the impact of HIV co-infection on the emergence of resistance and transmission of Mtb in the largest outbreak of multidrug-resistant TB in South America to date. By combining Bayesian evolutionary analyses and the reconstruction of transmission networks utilizing a new model optimized for TB, we find that HIV co-infection does not significantly affect the transmissibility or the mutation rate of Mtb within patients and was not associated with increased emergence of resistance within patients. Our results indicate that the HIV epidemic serves as an amplifier of TB outbreaks by providing a reservoir of susceptible hosts, but that HIV co-infection is not a direct driver for the emergence and transmission of resistant strains.
Date Issued
2016-08-09
Date Acceptance
2016-07-18
Citation
eLife, 2016, 5
ISSN
2050-084X
Publisher
eLife Sciences Publications
Journal / Book Title
eLife
Volume
5
Copyright Statement
Copyright Eldholm et al. This
article is distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use and
redistribution provided that the
original author and source are
credited.
article is distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use and
redistribution provided that the
original author and source are
credited.
License URL
Subjects
HIV
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
antimicrobial resistance
epidemiology
evolution
evolutionary biology
genomics
infectious disease
microbiology
transmission reconstruction
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e16644