Study of herpes simplex virus latency and the host defense mechanism against the infection

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Pathogenesis of herpes simplex virus infection in immunocompromised hosts were studied using animals with defined immunodeficiency, e.g., SCID (severe combined immunodeficiency) mice and athymic nude mice. This study was mainly focused on latency/reactivation, the unique pathologic mechanisms of the virus and an unsolved clinical problem despite the development of several potent antiviral drugs. Immunological and immunopathological effector cells obtained from the blood, spleen, regional lymph nodes and the inflammatory tissues such as cornea and retina, were analyzed for their surface markers with the flow cytometer obtained by this grant. In vitro and in vivo depletion of a specific subset of the lymphocytes were also used to identify the responsible subset for the immunopathology and/or immunological defense. Oligonucleotides were synthesized with the DNA synthesizer obtained by this grant and used as primers or probes for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and RNA PCR followed with dot blot and/or Southern blot hybridization. Herpes simplex virus secreted into saliva without symptoms were detected by PCR, and PCR was compared with the conventional virus isolation for its sensitivity and clinical significance of the positive samples. Human cytomegalovirus DNA, another herpesvirus and is difficult to grow in vitro was also detected by PCR from patient blood and other tissues. Both DNA and RNA were obtained from infected cells and animal tissues and were analyzed for various viral genome DNA and/or transcript RNA.RNA simples from latently infected mouse trigeminal ganglia with and without different reactivation stimulus were studied and different reactivation patterns characterized by the detection of ICP0 RNA only or detection of other viral transcripts were reported. Clinical virus isolates with distinct pathogenicity were molecularly analyzed for their envelope glycoprotein C genes or thymidine kinase genes. Pathogenicity of both the parent virus and the recombina