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Journal of Virology, September 2000, p. 7963-7971, Vol. 74, No. 17
Department of Microbiology and Molecular
Genetics and Committee on Virology, Harvard Medical School, Boston,
Massachusetts 02115
Received 7 April 2000/Accepted 7 June 2000
A number of studies have shown that replication-defective mutant
strains of herpes simplex virus (HSV) can induce protective immunity in
animal systems against wild-type HSV challenge. However, all of those
studies used viruses with single mutations. Because multiple, stable
mutations provide optimal levels of safety for live vaccines, we felt
that additional mutations needed to be engineered into a candidate
vaccine strain for HSV-2 and genital herpes. We therefore isolated an
HSV-2 strain with deletion mutations in two viral DNA replication
protein genes, UL5 and UL29. The resulting double deletion mutant virus
strain, dl5-29, fails to form plaques or to give any
detectable single cycle yields in normal monkey or human cells.
Nevertheless, dl5-29 expresses nearly the same pattern of
gene products as the wild-type virus or the single mutant viruses
and induces antibody titers in mice that are equivalent to
those induced by single deletion mutant viruses. Therefore, it is
feasible to isolate a mutant HSV strain with two mutations in essential
genes and with an increased level of safety but which is still highly immunogenic.
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Construction, Phenotypic Analysis, and Immunogenicity of a
UL5/UL29 Double Deletion Mutant of Herpes Simplex Virus 2

*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and Committee on Virology, Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115. Phone: (617) 432-1934. Fax: (617) 432-0223. E-mail address:
david_knipe{at}hms.harvard.edu.
Present address: Wyeth Lederle Vaccines, Pearl River, NY 10965.
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