Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Journal of Virology, December 2006, p. 12387-12392, Vol. 80, No. 24
0022-538X/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.01232-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Institute of Basic Medical Sciences,1 Department of Pharmacology,2 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Medical College, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan 70101, Republic of China3
Received 12 June 2006/ Accepted 14 September 2006
|
|
|---|
|
|
|---|
The mouse model, in which HSV establishes latency and then reactivates in neural tissues upon stimulation in a manner similar to that in human infection, is used extensively for studying HSV latency (14, 27, 29). For decades, studies using the mouse model found that reactivation of latent HSV occurred efficiently and consistently in ganglia, but extremely rarely in the CNS, when assayed ex vivo by mincing tissues before explant culture (3, 5, 7, 15, 16, 20, 22-24, 30). This procedure has been the most sensitive and reproducible technique for assaying HSV reactivation. As latency involves establishment, maintenance, and reactivation, the failure to detect viral reactivation from the CNS per se in ex vivo studies has cast doubt on the authenticity of the CNS as a "latently infected tissue" (20, 22) and has raised the question of whether recurrent herpes encephalitis is a reactivation event in the CNS. Consequently, the detection of virus in latently infected mouse brains in vivo following immunosuppression was interpreted as the spread of reactivated virus from ganglia (14, 27). However, investigations into the nature of latency in ganglia and the CNS found no obvious qualitative difference between these two sites with respect to the cell types in which virus is latent, the structure and levels of latent viral genomes, or latent viral gene expression (3, 6, 7, 20, 22, 24). In this study, we sought to address the unresolved issue of HSV reactivation from the CNS by using an alternative approach.
BALB/c mice were infected with 2 x 107 PFU of HSV type 1 (HSV-1) strain KOS via both eyes following corneal scarification. The infected mice did not show obvious signs of CNS infection during acute infection, and all infected mice survived. At 30 days postinfection (p.i.), when virus had established latency, mouse brains, spinal cords (cervical and thoracic segments), and trigeminal ganglia were excised. The brain was further dissected into brain stem (pons-medulla), cerebellum, olfactory bulb, frontal cortex, and hippocampus. The weights of neural tissues from three mice were measured. The mean (± standard error of the mean) weight of one spinal cord, trigeminal ganglion, brain stem, cerebellum, olfactory bulb, frontal cortex, or hippocampus specimen was 40 ± 10, 10 ± 1, 110 ± 10, 80 ± 3, 40 ± 3, 90 ± 3, or 10 ± 3 mg/tissue, respectively. When 20 trigeminal ganglia, 20 spinal cords, and 20 brain stems were frozen and homogenized to assay for the presence of infectious virus by plaque assay on Vero cells as previously described (30), virus could not be recovered from any of these tissues. These results are consistent with previous studies (3, 6, 7, 16, 24, 30) and confirmed that persistent infection was not present in the neural tissues used for our study.
Meanwhile, neural tissues were assayed for reactivation of latent virus by a conventional mincing method. Briefly, tissues were chopped finely (
1 mm3) and directly incubated with monolayers of Vero cells, which support viral replication, in Dulbecco's modified Eagle medium (DMEM) containing 10% fetal bovine serum, 2 mM L-glutamine, 0.075% HCO3, 200 U/ml penicillin, 200 µg/ml streptomycin, and 0.25 µg/ml amphotericin B (Fungizone). The culture medium was changed every 3 days. Cultures were inspected daily for cytopathic effect in Vero cells. Any culture that did not show cytopathic effect after 10 days was harvested, frozen, thawed, sonicated, and replated onto fresh monolayers of Vero cells. The next day, the culture medium was aspirated, and medium containing 1.5% methylcellulose was overlaid. Cultures were incubated for 4 more days and then stained with crystal violet. Consistent with previous studies (3, 7, 16, 24, 30), virus was recovered from ganglia, but not from any brain stem or cerebellum, of 16 mice.
In addition, neural tissues were assayed for reactivation of latent virus by an alternative, dissociation method. Briefly, tissues were chopped finely and incubated in serum-free DMEM containing 0.08% trypsin, 0.013% collagenase type I-A (Sigma), 20 mM HEPES, L-glutamine, HCO3, penicillin, streptomycin, and amphotericin B. After constant agitation for 40 min at 37°C, the suspension was centrifuged at 300 x g for 10 min at 4°C, and then the pellet was resuspended in DMEM containing serum and supplements as described above for the mincing method. Subsequently, the suspension was transferred to confluent monolayers of Vero cells (6 x 105 cells/well in six-well plates seeded the day before). Dissociated cells from the brain stem, cerebellum, and frontal cortex were transferred to three wells, and those from the olfactory bulb, hippocampus, and trigeminal ganglion were transferred to one well. The explant cultures were incubated at 37°C in 5% CO2 undisturbed for the first 3 days. The culture medium was changed every 3 days. During the first medium change, care was taken to avoid disruption of the attachment between dissociated neural tissues and Vero cell monolayers. The cultures were maintained and observed for cytopathic effect as described for the mincing method. Any well in which virus was recovered was scored positive for the specimen assayed. Using the dissociation method, virus was recovered from spinal cords (33%) and brains (Table 1). In the brain, the rate of recovery of virus from brain stem (71%) was much higher than that from cerebellum (20%), olfactory bulb (12%), frontal cortex (12%), and hippocampus (0%).
|
View this table: [in a new window] |
TABLE 1. Recovery of HSV from neural tissues of latently infected micea
|
In the CNS, the brain stem had the highest reactivation frequency. To investigate whether this was correlated with viral replication during acute infection and subsequent establishment of latency in this region, brain tissues were harvested from infected mice during acute infection and assayed for infectious virus. There was hardly any virus in brain tissues at days 1 and 2 p.i. (data not shown), which was consistent with a previous study (16). Viral growth in brain tissues peaked around day 5 p.i. (Table 2). The peak viral titer in brain stems was more than 100-fold higher than that in other brain regions.
|
View this table: [in a new window] |
TABLE 2. Levels of acute viral replication and numbers of latent viral genomes in brain stems and other brain regions
|
By comparing the reactivation frequencies (Table 1) and average viral titers at day 5 p.i. (Table 2) in different brain regions, a correlation between the two can been seen. When we applied linear regression analysis for these values, the correlation was very strong (r2 = 0.96) (Fig. 1A). Surprisingly, quite a few latent viral genomes were detected in the hippocampus, where no viral reactivation could be observed (Tables 1 and 2). Using linear regression analysis, we found that the correlation between the reactivation frequencies and average numbers of latent viral genomes in different brain regions was indeed weaker (r2 = 0.54) (Fig. 1B). Future studies are needed to elucidate the relationship between latency and reactivation potential in these tissues. Nevertheless, these data indicate that the presence of viral genomes might not be a good index to predict the ability of HSV reactivation to cause recurrent disease in the CNS. Indeed, previous studies using the presence of viral genomes in patient specimens as an index for investigating the involvement of HSV in neurological diseases found contradictory results (1, 12). Thus, besides detecting the presence of infectious virus, our study suggests that testing the potential of viral reactivation from specific regions of brain specimens of patients might be a better indicator for investigating the association between HSV and neurological diseases.
![]() View larger version (18K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 1. Correlation between reactivation frequency and acute replication or number of latent viral genomes in brain regions. The reactivation frequencies were plotted against the average viral titers at day 5 p.i. (A) or against the average number of latent viral genomes (B) in brain stems (open diamond), cerebellums (solid triangle), olfactory bulbs (open circle), frontal cortices (solid circle), and hippocampi (open triangle). The best-fit lines were generated by linear regression of values, and the correlation coefficients (r2) are displayed in each panel.
|
![]() View larger version (19K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 2. Kinetics of reactivation of HSV from mouse neural tissues. Brain stems (BS) (filled symbols) and trigeminal ganglia (TG) (open symbols) of mice inoculated with (A) HSV-1 KOS, (B) HSV-1 McKrae, or (C) HSV-2 333 were harvested at day 30 p.i. to assay for viral reactivation by the dissociation method.
|
The key to our successful reactivation of latent HSV from mouse brains was the dissociation method, which was modified from the protocol used first by Leib et al. (19) and later by several laboratories to assay for viral reactivation from ganglia (4). Previously, cellular factors, such as the ability of ganglionic and CNS tissues to survive in explant culture, have been proposed as a possible explanation for the efficient reactivation of latent HSV from ganglia but not from the CNS (6). Thus, we next determined whether the dissociation method supports viral reactivation from mouse CNS by affecting the survival of fragile brain cells. Brain stems removed from 10-week-old uninfected BALB/c mice were minced or dissociated and then cultured. The minced brain stems in cultures were gently passed through Pasteur pipettes several times to release cells from tissues before the cell viabilities of minced and dissociated cultures were evaluated by trypan blue exclusion. Figure 3A shows that the brain stem cells processed by the mincing method lost viability much more rapidly than those processed by the dissociation method. The percentage of viable brain stem cells in dissociated cultures was significantly higher than that in minced cultures at 24 h postexplant (P < 0.05 by Student's t test), indicating that the dissociation method sustained the viability of brain stem cells. When 2,000 PFU of virus was added to cultures of brain stems from uninfected mice and left for 24 h, the brain stem cultures processed by the dissociation method, but not those processed by the mincing method, sustained viral infectivity (Fig. 3B). These data showed that the dissociation method greatly enhanced the cell viability and viral infectivity of brain stem cultures compared to the mincing method, and this may explain why the dissociation method supports efficient reactivation of latent HSV from mouse CNS.
![]() View larger version (26K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 3. The dissociation method sustains the cell viability and viral infectivity of brain stem cultures. (A) Brain stems (BS) and trigeminal ganglia (TG) harvested from uninfected BALB/c mice were minced or dissociated and then cultured before the cell viabilities of minced and dissociated cultures were evaluated by trypan blue exclusion. One hundred nucleated cells were counted, and the unstained (viable) cells were recorded. (B) BS and TG harvested from uninfected BALB/c mice were minced or dissociated and cultured. HSV-1 KOS (2,000 PFU) was added to cultures, and cultures were harvested for titration of infectious virus at 24 h p.i. Data shown in panels A and B are the means ± standard errors of the means from three independent experiments, each done in duplicate. *, P < 0.05 by Student's t test. (C) Dissociated BS, but not TG, preparations damaged less confluent Vero and human neuronal (SK-N-SH) cell monolayers. Dissociated cells from one-third of a BS or one TG were added to monolayers of Vero or SK-N-SH cells and cultured for 48 h before being stained with crystal violet. The data shown represent two experiments.
|
More than 70 years ago, Goodpasture (10) suggested that HSV was latent in neural tissues. Subsequent studies led to the assumption that latent HSV genomes in the CNS were defective for reactivation (20, 22, 25). This long-standing concept and the lack of an assay impaired studies on HSV reactivation from the CNS for more than two decades, even though HSV was suspected of being involved in neurological diseases, such as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease (1, 9, 11, 12, 21). Our current findings of efficient reactivation of latent HSV from mouse CNS strongly argue against this concept and are consistent with investigations showing no obvious qualitative differences in the latent infections of ganglia and the CNS (3, 6, 7, 20, 22, 24). Thus, the presence of infectious virus in latently infected mouse brains following immunosuppression (14, 27) is likely due to the reactivation of latent virus in the brain in situ and not necessarily to the spread of reactivated virus from ganglia.
The observation that the CNS is an authentic latency site broadens our understanding of the nature of HSV latency and recurrent disease in the CNS. This also has implications for the use of HSV as a vector for gene therapy and the controversy regarding HSV as a possible etiological agent for several human neurological diseases (1, 2, 9, 11, 12, 21). Most importantly, this study establishes a very sensitive and reproducible technique for assaying HSV reactivation from the CNS and will provide impetus to reinitiate studies on the possible associations between HSV and devastating neurological diseases.
This work was supported by a grant from the Taiwan National Science Council (93-2320-B-006-38).
Published ahead of print on 27 September 2006. ![]()
|
|
|---|
This article has been cited by other articles:
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»