Herpes simplex virus infections in male and female mice following pinna inoculation: responses to primary infection and artificially induced recurrent disease.
The pathogenesis of herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection is now well understood. After humans or experimental animals recover from primary infection, the virus remains latent in sensory ganglia of the peripheral nervous system. Latency, for the most part, remains unresolved, and elucidating the mechanisms involved with latency has proved difficult. The requirement for unravelling HSV latency is the availability of a reproducible animal model. Previously, the mouse ear model has been extensively characterized; however, many studies using this model have involved female mice only despite evidence that recurrent HSV infection in humans may vary by gender. We inoculated male and female mice subcutaneously in the pinna with varying amounts of one of four strains of HSV and monitored the mice for signs of primary infection. Following recovery from primary infection, mice were induced to develop recurrent disease. In addition, we attempted to isolate virus from dorsal root ganglia of mice suspected of harboring latent virus. There were no differences in the response of male and female mice to either primary infection or artificially induced recurrent disease when inoculated with the same virus. Differences were noted when female mice were inoculated with different strains of virus.
Blondeau
J M
JM
Department of Microbiology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Embil
J A
JA
McFarlane
E S
ES
D000818:Animals; D001706:Biopsy; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004423:Ear / Q000382:microbiology; D004890:Erythema / Q000150:complications; D005260:Female; D005727:Ganglia, Spinal / Q000382:microbiology; D006561:Herpes Simplex / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D012008:Recurrence