A description of how HIV attacks the antivirus program called virus-specific T cells.

What is it about?

Virus-specific T cells proliferate and attack virus-infected cells repeatedly until they become undetectable in the body. Therefore, virus-specific T-cell response can be regarded as a recursive (rather than just iterative) process. However, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is able to counterattack the virus-specific T cells and therefore persist in the body forever, thus making the recursive process endless. These recursive mechanisms are not visible but facilitate persistent HIV replication for years, leading to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).

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Why is it important?

Even if HIV researchers analyze HIV, infected cells, and infected hosts in detail, it is not easy to get abstract understanding of the HIV disease. Therefore, we provide a model to help understand the pathogenesis. In the model, a virus attacks the host's antivirus program (T cells), which is called recursively, and causes endless repeat of the process by collapsing the method of virus detection (the virus-specific part of T cells) coded in the program. Most other viruses don't cause this, because they don't target the virus-specific part of the antivirus program.

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