Establishment of latency in vitro with herpes simplex virus temperature-sensitive mutants at nonpermissive temperature

Abstract

This report describes a latency model using human embryo lung cells that were infected with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) temperature-sensitive (ts) mutants and cultivated at nonpermissive temperature (40.5 °C). ts mutants tsG8 (parental strain HSV-1 KOS) and tsG5 (parental strain HSV-1 13) could be maintained in a latent state at 40.5 °C for at least 40 days without exhibiting virus infectivity. During this time, viable virus could be reactivated by reducing the incubation temperature to the permissive level (34 °C). Virus replication could be detected 2 to 6 days after temperature reduction and the virus reactivated from the latent state seemed to retain the same ts phenotype as the input virus for at least 14 days.