Abstract
Purpose :
Very little is known regarding the inter-relationship between primary virus replication in the eye, the level of latency in the TG and the time to reactive of the mouse model. This study was designed to answers these questions.
Methods :
Female C57BL/6 mice were infected ocularly with virulent (McKrae) or avirulent (KOS, RE) strains of HSV-1. Virus titers in the eyes on days 3 and 5 post infection (PI), level of viral gB DNA in TG on day 28 PI, and virus reactivation on day 28 PI were measured.
Results :
Our results suggest that the avirulent strains of HSV-1 even after corneal scarification had fewer viruses in the eye, less latency, and a longer time to reactivate than virulent strains of HSV-1. The time to explant reactivation of avirulent strains of HSV-1 was similar to that of the virulent LAT-minus McKrae derived mutant. The viral dose with the McKrae strains of HSV-1 affected level of viral DNA and time to explant reactivation.
Conclusions :
Our results point to the absence of any correlation between the level of primary virus replication with the level of viral DNA during latency and neither were an indicator of how rapidly the virus reactivated following explant TG induced reactivation.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.