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Postexposure vaccination with a virion host shutoff defective mutant reduces UV-B radiation-induced ocular herpes
J Walker1, K A Laycock, J S Pepose
1Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
Abstract:
A herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) recombinant (UL41NHB) deficient in the virion host shutoff (vhs) function was tested as a therapeutic vaccine in an ultraviolet (UV) light-induced mouse ocular reactivation model. Mice were infected with HSV-1 via the cornea. Following the establishment of latency by HSV-1 the mice were subsequently vaccinated intraperitoneally with one dose of UL41NHB or with uninfected cell extract. Mice were subsequently UV-irradiated to induce viral reactivation and during the 7 days post-UV irradiation, numbers of mice shedding virus were reduced from 13/23 (57%) to 3/25 (12%), and numbers of virus-positive eye swabs were reduced from 40/161 (25%) to 6/175 (3%) by the vaccine (P < 0.001). These data suggest that deletion of vhs may be a useful strategy in the development of attenuated therapeutic HSV vaccines.