Analysis of cells infected by a wide range of herpesviruses has identified numerous virally encoded microRNAs (miRNAs), and several reports suggest that these viral miRNAs are likely to play key roles in several aspects of the herpesvirus life cycle. Here we report the first analysis of human ganglia for the presence of virally encoded miRNAs. Deep sequencing of human trigeminal ganglia latentl...

The herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) UL41 gene product, virion host shutoff (vhs), has homologs among five alphaherpesviruses (HSV-1, HSV-2, pseudorabies virus, varicella-zoster virus, and equine herpesvirus 1), suggesting a role for this protein in neurotropism. A mutant virus, termed UL41NHB, which carries a nonsense linker in the UL41 open reading frame at amino acid position 238 was gene...

Introduction: Varicella zoster virus is a highly infectious a-herpesvirus, pathogenic only to humans. The primary infection of varicella causes chickenpox, which contagious and primarily infects children adolescents in India. Following the infection, remains dormant sensory root ganglia. Activation later stages life herpes may vary from subclinical typical zoster, scattered vesicles, sine herpe...

Mice lacking neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) have been shown previously to be born with severe sensory deficits. This study characterizes the developmental course of this deficit in the trigeminal sensory ganglion, which in NT-3 homozygous mutants contains only 35% of the normal number of neurons at birth. At embryonic day 10.5 (E10.5), normal numbers of neurons, as assessed by expression of neurofilamen...

Infection of mouse trigeminal ganglia by herpes simplex virus induces cytokine expression that persists long after infectious virus or viral antigens become undetectable. To examine mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, we used a thymidine kinase mutant, dlsptk, which fails to replicate in ganglia and does not reactivate upon ganglionic explant. Using quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymer...