Quantitative comparison of the HSV-1 and HSV-2 transcriptomes using DNA microarray analysis

The genomes of human herpes virus type-1 and type-2 share a high degree of sequence identity; yet, they exhibit important differences in pathology in their natural human host as well as in animal host and cell cultures. Here, we report the comparative analysis of the time and relative abundance profiles of the transcription of each virus type (their transcriptomes) using parallel infections and microarray analysis using HSV-1 probes which hybridize with high efficiency to orthologous HSV-2 transcripts. We have confirmed that orthologous transcripts belong to the same kinetic class; however, the temporal pattern of accumulation of 4 transcripts (U(L)4, U(L)29, U(L)30, and U(L)31) differs in infections between the two virus types. Interestingly, the protein products of these transcripts are all involved in nuclear organization and viral DNA localization. We discuss the relevance of these findings and whether they may have potential roles in the pathological differences of HSV-1 and HSV-2.