Marek's disease, a lymphoma caused by herpesvirus-replication dynamics, pathogenesis and vaccine effect

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Marek's disease virus (MDV) causes Marek's disease (MD), a lymphoma of poultry. MDV is globally ubiquitous, thus almost all commercial chickens are vaccinated with the MD vaccine. Incidence of MD in unvaccinated chicken flocks can be as high as 20-30 %; this was commonly observed before the introduction of MD vaccines in the early 1970's. The MD vaccine is unusual in that it does not prevent virulent MDV infection, but rather the vaccine virus prevents tumor formation while co-existing with the virulent virus in the host. The mechanism by which this occurs is not well understood. MD tumor cells harbor the MDV genome, which means the tumor cells are infected with virus. Since MD tumor cells are not killed by the MDV infection, they must be infected latently. Otherwise MDV kills the lytically infected cells. It is very difficult to detect these latently infected cells as MDV makes only a few virus specific proteins and RNAs during latency. However, it is essential to know the dynamics of both lytic and latent infection in order to understand the pathogenesis and vaccination mechanisms in MD.