SIMPLICITY: an agent-based, multi-scale mathematical model to study SARS-CoV-2 intra- and between-host evolution

Computational tools are frequently used to describe pathogen evolutionary dynamics either within infected hosts or at the population level. However, there is a lack of models that capture the complex interplay between within-host and between-host evolutionary dynamics, leaving a knowledge gap with regard to realistic evolutionary dynamics as observed within molecular surveillance programs. We present SIMPLICITY, a multi-scale mathematical model that combines within-host disease progression and viral evolution, with a population-level model of virus transmission and immune evasion. We parameterize SIMPLICITY based on SARS-CoV-2 within-host viral dynamics, observed evolutionary rates, as well as dynamics of immune waning. We then apply SIMPLICITY to study the dynamics and mechanisms driving SARS-CoV-2 evolution at the population level. We compare a model of gradually increasing transmission fitness with an adaptive fitness landscape model that accounts for temporal changes in transmission fitness due to infection history and immune waning in the population. Our simulations demonstrate that escape from population immunity generates evolutionary dynamics encompassing selective sweeps, which resembles actual SARS-CoV-2 evolution. To the contrary, the model of gradual fitness fails to resemble realistic SARS-CoV-2 evolutionary dynamics. Overall, this demonstrates that infection history and immune waning should be considered in models of viral fitness, including machine learning approaches.

In short, SIMPLICITY can be used to investigate mechanisms driving viral evolution and constitutes a versatile tool for creating synthetic datasets of viral evolution to e.g. benchmark and challenge phylogenetic pipelines used in outbreak investigation.