Selective abolishment of pyrimidine nucleoside kinase activity of herpes simplex virus type 1 thymidine kinase by mutation of alanine-167 to tyrosine.

Restriction Enzyme Analysis of Thymidine Kinase Gene in Four Iranian Isolates of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1

PCR detection of thymidine kinase gen of latent herpes simplex Virus type 1 in mice trigeminal ganglia

  Herpes simplex virus type 1 establishes a latent infection in the peripheral nervous system following primary infection. During latent infection, virus genome exhibit limited transcription, with the HSV LATs consistently detected in latency infected ganaglia. Following ocular infection viral latency develops in the trigeminal ganglia. In this study PCR has been used for detection of HSV-1 nuc...

The Effects and Pharmacokinetics of Acyclovir in Neonates

    Acyclovir (9-[2-hydroxyethoxymethyl] guanine) is an acyclic nucleoside analogue of guanosine which is a potent and selective antiviral agent. Acycloviris converted to the monophosphate by thymidine kinase the virus-specific form of this enzyme and is subsequently converted to the triphosphate by the host cell kinase. Acyclovir triphosphate inhibits viral DNA-polymerase terminating the chain...

Mutation of Gln125 to Asn selectively abolishes the thymidylate kinase activity of herpes simplex virus type 1 thymidine kinase.

The broad substrate specificity of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) thymidine kinase (TK) has provided the basis for selective antiherpetic therapy and, more recently, suicide gene therapy for the treatment of cancer. We have now constructed an HSV-1 TK mutant enzyme, in which an asparagine (N) residue is substituted for glutamine (Q) at position 125, and have evaluated the effect of this am...

Specific recognition of the bicyclic pyrimidine nucleoside analogs, a new class of highly potent and selective inhibitors of varicella-zoster virus (VZV), by the VZV-encoded thymidine kinase.

Recently, an entirely new class of bicyclic nucleoside analogs (BCNAs) was found to display exquisite potency and selectivity as inhibitors of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) replication in cell culture. A striking difference in their ability to convert the BCNAs to their phosphorylated derivatives was observed between the VZV-encoded thymidine kinase (TK) and the very closely related herpes simpl...