Journal of Virology, April 2001, p. 3240-3249, Vol. 75, No. 7
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.7.3240-3249.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
andDepartment of Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6076
Received 8 September 2000/Accepted 27 December 2000
Relative to wild-type herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1),
ICP0-null mutant viruses reactivate inefficiently from explanted, latently infected mouse trigeminal ganglia (TG), indicating that ICP0
is not essential for reactivation but plays a central role in
enhancing the efficiency of reactivation. The validity of these findings has been questioned, however, because the replication of
ICP0-null mutants is impaired in animal models during the establishment of latency, such that fewer mutant genomes than wild-type genomes are
present in latently infected mouse TG. Therefore, the reduced number of
mutant viral genomes available to reactivate, rather than mutations in
the ICP0 gene per se, may be responsible for the reduced reactivation
efficiency of ICP0-null mutants. We have recently demonstrated that
optimization of the size of the ICP0 mutant virus inoculum and
transient immunosuppression of mutant-infected mice with
cyclophosphamide can be used to establish wild-type levels of ICP0-null
mutant genomes in latently infected TG (W. P. Halford and P. A. Schaffer, J. Virol. 74:5957-5967, 2000). Using this
procedure to equalize mutant and wild-type genome numbers, the goal
of the present study was to determine if, relative to wild-type virus, the absence of ICP0 function in two ICP0-null mutants, n212 and 7134, affects reactivation efficiency
from (i) explants of latently infected TG and (ii) primary cultures of latently infected TG cells. Although equivalent numbers of viral genomes were present in TG of mice latently infected with either wild-type or mutant viruses, reactivation of n212 and 7134 from heat-stressed TG explants was inefficient (31 and 37%
reactivation, respectively) relative to reactivation of wild-type virus
(KOS) (95%). Similarly, n212 and 7134 reactivated
inefficiently from primary cultures of dissociated TG cells plated
directly after removal from the mouse (7 and 4% reactivation,
respectively), relative to KOS (60% reactivation). The efficiency and
kinetics of reactivation of KOS, n212, and 7134 from
cultured TG cells (treated with acyclovir to facilitate the
establishment of latency) in response to heat stress or
superinfection with a nonreplicating HSV-1 ICP4
mutant, n12, were compared. Whereas heat stress
induced reactivation of KOS from 69% of latently infected TG cell
cultures, reactivation of n212 and 7134 was detected in
only 1 and 7% of cultures, respectively. In contrast,
superinfection with the ICP4
virus, which expresses high
levels of ICP0, resulted in the production of infectious virus in
nearly 100% of cultures latently infected with KOS, n212,
or 7134 within 72 h. Thus, although latent mutant viral genome
loads were equivalent to that of wild-type virus, in the absence of
ICP0, n212 and 7134 reactivated inefficiently from latently
infected TG cells during culture establishment and following heat
stress. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that ICP0 is required
to induce efficient reactivation of HSV-1 from neuronal latency.
Present address: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Tulane
University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112-2699.
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