Maintenance of the latent reservoir by pyroptosis and superinfection in a fractional order HIV transmission model

We focus on the importance of pyroptosis and superinfection on the maintenance of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) latent reservoir on infected patients. The latent reservoir has been found to be crucial to the persistence of low levels of viral loads found in HIV-infected patients, after many years of successfully suppressive anti-retroviral therapy (ART). This reservoir seems to act as an archive for strains of HIV no longer dominant in the blood, such as wild-type virus. When a patient decides to quit therapy there is a rapid turnover and the wild-type virus re-emerges. Thus, it is extremely important to understand the mechanisms behind the maintenance of this reservoir. For that, we propose a fractional order model for the dynamics of HIV, where pyroptosis and superinfection are considered. The model is simulated for biological meaningful parameters and interesting patterns are found. Our results are interpreted for clinical appreciation.