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The evolution of virulence in RNA viruses under a competition-colonization trade-off

RNA viruses exist in large intra-host populations which display great genotypic and phenotypic diversity. We analyze a model of viral competition between two different viral strains infecting a constantly replenished cell pool, in which we assume a trade-off between the virus' colonization skills (cell killing ability or virulence) and its local competition skills (replication performance within coinfected cells). We characterize the conditions that allow for viral spread by means of the basic reproductive number and show that a local coexistence equilibrium exists, which is asymptotically stable. At this equilibrium, the less virulent competitor has a reproductive advantage over the more virulent colonizer. The equilibria at which one strain outcompetes the other one are unstable, i.e., a second viral strain is always able to permanently invade. One generalization of the model is to consider multiple viral strains, each one displaying a different virulence. However, to account for the large phenotypic diversity in viral populations, we consider a continuous spectrum of virulences and present a continuum limit of this multiple viral strains model that describes the time evolution of an initial continuous distribution of virulence. We provide a proof of the existence of solutions of the model's equations and present numerical approximations of solutions for different initial distributions. Our simulations suggest that initial continuous distributions of virulence evolve towards a stationary distribution that is extremely skewed in favor of competitors. Consequently, collective virulence attenuation takes place. This finding may contribute to understanding the phenomenon of virulence attenuation, which has been reported in previous experimental studies.