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J Virol, August 1998, p. 6888-6892, Vol. 72, No. 8
Division of Infectious Diseases, Children's
Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio 45229-3039
Received 2 January 1998/Accepted 30 April 1998
The purpose of this study was to define the relationship
between herpes simplex virus (HSV) latency and in vivo ganglionic reactivation. Groups of mice with numbers of latently infected neurons
ranging from 1.9 to 24% were generated by varying the input titer of
wild-type HSV type 1 strain 17syn+. Reactivation of the virus in mice
from each group was induced by hyperthermic stress. The number of
animals that exhibited virus reactivation was positively correlated
with the number of latently infected neurons in the ganglia over the
entire range examined (r = 0.9852, P < 0.0001 [Pearson correlation]).
Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a
neurotrophic pathogen of humans that establishes latent infections in
the sensory ganglia innervating the site of primary disease. The latent
virus periodically reactivates, producing infectious virus which can
result in recurrent surface lesions (for reviews, see references
23 and 35). The frequency with
which infected individuals experience clinically manifested
reactivation of HSV is quite variable, ranging from 0 to 12 or more episodes per year (30; see reference
35 for a review). Why this is the case is not
understood, but the number of latent sites in the ganglia is one factor
that may be important.
The correlation between the amount of HSV latency and the frequency of
reactivation both in vitro and in vivo has been examined by a number of
investigators. In these studies, latency was quantified on the basis of
(i) the total amount of viral DNA in latently infected ganglia (1,
2, 4, 8, 10, 13-16, 34), (ii) the number of latency-associated
transcript (LAT) RNA-positive or LAT promoter reporter-positive neurons
(5, 7, 26), or (iii) the number of neurons containing the
viral genome as determined by PCR-based approaches (16, 33).
Steiner et al. reported a direct correlation between input PFU and
cocultivation reactivation of HSV in the trigeminal ganglia (TG) of
mice inoculated with a VP16-negative mutant (32). In all but
one of these reports, mutant virus and/or wild-type strains differing
in their ability to reactivate were compared. Leib et al. examined the
correlation between input titers of HSV strain KOS, the amount of viral
DNA in the latently infected ganglia, and cocultivation reactivation (15). A reduction of cocultivation reactivation was observed only with very low input titers. The level of establishment could not
be quantified in these ganglia because of the insensitivity of the slot
blot hybridization method employed (15).
These studies have extended our understanding of the link between acute
infection, the establishment of latency, and subsequent reactivation.
However, a basic issue remains unresolved. Does the number of latently
infected neurons influence the in vivo HSV reactivation potential of
ganglia infected with a given virus strain? If so, what is the nature
of the relationship? Recent estimates made by using PCR-based assays
for the viral genome indicate that as many as 10 to 30% of the neurons
can be latently infected, a number significantly larger than previously
concluded on the basis of in situ detection of LAT RNA-expressing sites (16, 18, 21, 22, 24). Delineating the relationship between this number and reactivation would provide clues to the mechanism of
reactivation and aid in establishing clinical treatment goals. In this
study, the ability of HSV type 1 (HSV-1) strain 17syn+ to reactivate
from ganglia containing different numbers of latently infected neurons
was determined. A recently developed method, contextual analysis of DNA
(CXA-D), was used to quantify virus latency at the single-cell level.
Using this assay, the percentage of ganglionic neurons containing viral
DNA can be determined (24).
Correlation among input titer, PIN, and in vivo reactivation.
Groups of male Swiss Webster mice (18 to 20 g) obtained from
Harlan Laboratories (Indianapolis, Ind.) were infected on scarified corneas with input titers of wild-type strain 17syn+ (obtained from J. Subak-Sharpe of the Medical Research Council Virology Unit in Glasgow,
Scotland) ranging from ~5 × 102 to ~5 × 105 PFU. Preliminary experiments demonstrated that this
3-log span of inoculum titers resulted in significant differences in
the numbers of latently infected neurons in the ganglia. Higher input titers resulted in unacceptable levels of mortality, and lower input
titers increased the probability that the mice would not be infected.
At >30 days postinoculation, six ganglia from each group were
processed and then analyzed by CXA-D (24). In brief, perfusion-fixed trigeminal ganglia were removed and dissociated into
single-cell suspensions, and enriched neuron populations were obtained
by using Percoll (Pharmacia) gradients. The percentage of
infected neurons (PIN) in the latently infected ganglia was determined
by a single-neuron PCR assay as described previously (24).
Consistent with our previous report (24), reducing the input
titer resulted in ganglia containing fewer latently infected neurons
(Table 1). Input titers of
~105 PFU resulted in >20% of the ganglionic neurons
harboring HSV DNA, while only ~2% of the neurons were positive when
the input titer was reduced to 500 PFU.
0022-538X/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
The Probability of In Vivo Reactivation of Herpes
Simplex Virus Type 1 Increases with the Number of Latently Infected
Neurons in the Ganglia
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ABSTRACT
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TEXT
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TABLE 1.
Input titer, PIN, and total number of latently infected
neurons per
TG pair
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ACV treatment reduces the number of latent infections and subsequent in vivo reactivation. We had previously shown that acyclovir (ACV) administered during acute infection resulted in a reduction of the number of latently infected neurons in the ganglia of treated mice (24). Therefore, an additional experiment was performed to test whether controlling the number of latently infected neurons in this manner has a similar impact on reactivation. This would test the hypothesis that the viral reactivation frequency is determined by the input titer and not by events, such as replication, occurring subsequent to inoculation. Male Swiss Webster mice (18 to 20 g) were inoculated on scarified corneas with 2.6 × 105 PFU of wild-type HSV-1 strain 17syn+. A 50-mg/kg dose of ACV (Glaxo Wellcome) was administered to each mouse intraperitoneally three times per day beginning either at the time of inoculation or following a delay of 36 h and continuing through day 7 postinoculation. Control mice received saline alone. As predicted, acute virus replication was markedly reduced in the eyes and TG of ACV-treated mice, confirming the efficacy of treatment (data not shown). At >30 days postinoculation, the percentage of neurons latently infected in each group was determined by CXA-D (24). For each group, neurons harvested from six ganglia were pooled and analyzed. ACV treatment dramatically reduced the number of latently infected neurons in the ganglia, a finding consistent with our previous report (Fig. 2) (24). Even when ACV treatment was delayed for 36 h, the number of latently infected neurons was reduced >10-fold compared to the number in the ganglia of sham-treated control mice. As described above, HSV reactivation in mice from each of these groups was induced by HS (25). The results showed a clear correlation between the number of latently infected neurons in the ganglia and the number of mice in which HSV reactivation occurred following HS (Fig. 2). In addition, the possibility that the reactivation frequency was determined directly by the input titer was eliminated.
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Variability in PIN among animals. In the preceding experiments, the number of latently infected neurons in each of the groups of mice was determined by analyzing a pool of six ganglia from mice representing that group. Thus, there was a possibility that the reactivation data at the lower input titers reflected the reactivation of virus in one animal in the group which had a very high percentage of latently infected neurons. It was therefore important to gain insight into the degree of variability among the individual mice in each input-titer group. To do this, groups of mice were inoculated, via corneal scarification, with either 500, 5,000, or 500,000 PFU of HSV. At >30 days postinoculation, mice were perfusion fixed and ganglia from individual mice were analyzed by CXA-D to determine the number of latently infected neurons. Eight individual mice in the 500-PFU group, six in the 5,000-PFU group, and five in the 500,000-PFU group were analyzed. All of the inoculated mice examined were found to contain latently infected neurons. The PIN was most variable in the 500-PFU input-titer group, ranging from 0.16 to 4.6% (mean, 1.5%), while those of the 5,000- and 500,000-PFU groups ranged from 5 to 18% (mean, 10%) and 24 to 29% (mean, 27%), respectively. The average PIN in the input-titer groups in this experiment were very similar to those obtained in the first experiment, 1.9, 11.5, and 24%, respectively. As presented below, seven mice in the 500-PFU group were also analyzed by whole-ganglion quantitative PCR (QPCR), and none of the TG contained high levels of HSV DNA. Thus, in a total of 15 individual mice and a pool of 3 mice of the lowest-input-titer group, no outliers were detected. It therefore seems unlikely that HSV reactivation in the 500-PFU group was due to the presence of a single animal with a very large number of latently infected neurons.
Total-ganglion QPCR. To compare the efficiency of detection of low levels of latency by total-ganglion QPCR with that of single-neuron PCR, DNA was prepared from TG of seven mice belonging to the 500-PFU inoculation group (described above) and was analyzed by the method of Katz et al. (11). HSV DNA was detected in only three of the seven ganglion pairs; one contained an estimated 26,500 viral genomes, and the other two had levels too low to accurately quantify. The standards in this assay demonstrated that in the background of 100 ng of mouse DNA, 50 HSV genomes were detectable but 5 HSV genomes were not. This meant that ganglion pairs containing significantly fewer than 50 HSV genomes per 100 ng of mouse ganglion DNA could appear to be negative. Thus, in line with the sensitivity of the QPCR assay, HSV was detected in those ganglia containing the largest number of latently infected neurons but not in those containing the fewest. Two previous studies have demonstrated that estimates of total HSV DNA obtained by whole-ganglion QPCR are consistent with those obtained by CXA-D single-neuron PCR (24, 28).
The total number of latently infected neurons per TG pair was calculated for each group by multiplying the percentage of neurons latently infected by 40,000 (total neurons per TG pair) (3, 24) (Table 1). This number was then used to determine the covariation or correlation between a detectable reactivation event and the numbers of latently infected neurons present in the groups of mice infected with different HSV titers. In the group of mice receiving the smallest amount of virus, a detectable reactivation event (i.e., a positive animal) was detected once in every 15,200 latently infected neurons. In those animals that received the most virus, this number was once in every 13,700 latently infected neurons. It should be emphasized that this represents the minimum number of reactivation events which occurred in vivo. An additional assumption is that all latently infected neurons have an equal probability of HSV reactivation. The relationship between the number of latently infected neurons in the ganglia and in vivo reactivation frequency is shown graphically in Fig. 3. For this analysis, data from both the input-titer and the ACV experiments were included. Although there is a strong correlation between the frequency of HSV reactivation and the number of latently infected neurons (r = 0.9852, P < 0.0001), this does not indicate that there is a causal link between these two parameters. Unfortunately, there is currently no method for quantification of the number of latently infected neurons and assessment of viral reactivation in the same ganglia. These data do suggest, however, that large numbers of latently infected neurons in the ganglia do not necessarily lead to detectable HSV reactivation in all animals and, further, that some animals with relatively few latently infected neurons undergo viral reactivation.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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I thank R. L. Thompson for helpful discussion and C. S. Tansky for expert technical assistance.
This work was supported by Public Health Service grants AI32121 (from the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) and NS25879 (from the National Institutes of Neurological Communicative Disorders and Stroke) and CHMCC Trustee grant 31-358-639.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Mailing address: Division of Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital Medical Center, 3333 Burnet Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45229-3039. Phone: (513) 636-7880. Fax: (513) 636-7655. E-mail: Sawtn0{at}CHMCC.org.
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