A novel glycoprotein for detection of herpes simplex virus type 1-specific antibodies

A novel herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1)-specific glycoprotein reactive with monoclonal antibody H1379 was purified by affinity chromatography. This glycoprotein, provisionally designated as gG-1, forms two sets of bands with molecular weights of 40-44,000 and 60-88,000. When used in an immunodot enzymatic assay, gG-1 reacted strongly with rabbit antisera to HSV-1, but not with sera hyperimmune to HSV-2. Specificity of the assay was further established by the lack of reactivity of convalescent sera collected from 20 patients with primary genital HSV-2 infections, and from 100 sero-negative individuals. In contrast, antibodies to gG-1 were detected in 9 of 10 patients with primary HSV-1 infection, and in 63/67 patients with culture-positive, recurrent oral or genital HSV-1 infection. Reproducibility of the gG-1 immunodot assay for HSV-1 antibody detection was 96%. Serological assay with purified gG-1, done in parallel with the assay using purified gG-2 described in an earlier report, provides simple and reliable methods to detect type-specific HSV-1 and HSV-2 antibodies for seroepidemiological studies.