Hindawi, BioMed Research International, (2014), p. 1-12
DOI: 10.1155/2014/264519
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Rapidly mutating viruses, such as hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV, have adopted evolutionary strategies that allow escape from the host immune response via genomic mutations. Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing are reshaping the field of immuno-virology of viral infections, as these allow fast and cheap generation of genomic data. However, due to the large volumes of data generated, a thorough understanding of the biological and immunological significance of such information is often difficult. This paper proposes a pipeline that allows visualization and statistical analysis of viral mutations that are associated with immune escape. Taking next generation sequencing data from longitudinal analysis of HCV viral genomes during a single HCV infection, along with antigen specific T-cell responses detected from the same subject, we demonstrate the applicability of these tools in the context of primary HCV infection. We provide a statistical and visual explanation of the relationship between cooccurring mutations on the viral genome and the parallel adaptive immune response against HCV.