Partially purified methanolic extract of Cissus quadrangularis (belonging to Vitaceae member, South Indian medicinal plant) have been explored for antiviral activity and their phytochemical characterisation. In vitro antiviral activity against HSV type1 and 2, and Vero cells at non-cytotoxic concentration were determined. HSV1 and HSV2 showed more sensitivity against the partially purified comp...

Of 97 patients with genital ulcers attending a special treatment clinic in Nairobi, Kenya, 60 harboured Haemophilus ducreyi, four herpes simplex virus, and five Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Eleven patients had serological evidence of syphilis; of these one case was confirmed by darkfield microscopy. In the remaining cases no aetiological agent was identified. An enriched chocolate agar with vancomyci...

We report a case of eczema herpeticum with unilateral ocular involvement in a 16-year-old boy. The patient has had a mild form of atopic dermatitis (AD) since early childhood. Why AD patients are prone to herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections is still unclear. Ocular pathologic findings in these cases are rarely reported.

Although considerable attention has been directed in the field of gene therapy toward elucidating the mechanism by which a transduced cell could kill a bystander cell, little is known about how bystander cells may affect transduced cells. We hypothesized that bystander cells, particularly if they were capable of gap junctional communication, could protect cells transduced with the herpes simple...

Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV 1) thymidine kinase (TK) exhibits an extensive substrate diversity for nucleobases and sugar moieties, in contrast to other TKs. This substrate diversity is the crucial molecular basis of selective antiviral and suicide gene therapy. The mechanisms of substrate binding of HSV 1 TK were studied by means of site-directed mutagenesis combined with isothermal calori...

Homo sapiens harbor two distinct, medically significant species of simplexviruses, herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1 and HSV-2, with estimated divergence 6-8 million years ago (MYA). Unexpectedly, we found that circulating HSV-2 strains can contain HSV-1 DNA segments in three distinct genes. Using over 150 genital swabs from North and South America and Africa, we detected recombinants worldwide. Com...

We performed a serological evaluation of herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections at the time of labor. In order to determine the seroprevalence of asymptomatic HSV infections in pregnant women, blood samples were collected for antibody measurement from 130 randomly selected pregnant women. Presence of HSV IgG and IgM antibodies in the serum samples was tested by ELISA. The prevalence of HSV-1 gG1...

Neonatal animals were not considered as suitable vaccine recipients either because of immune immaturity or because passively delivered antibody interferes with immune induction. In this report, we evaluated the response of neonatal mice to immunization with naked DNA encoding a herpes simplex virus (HSV) protein, and determined if maternally derived HSV antibody interfered with immunogenicity. ...

The herpes simplex virus latency associated transcripts (LAT) are the only viral gene products that accumulate to a high concentration in the trigeminal ganglia (TG) of latently infected animals. Their abundance is particularly surprising, since they are thought to be the introns of a larger, approximately 8.3 kb precursor. LAT are not linear molecules. Therefore they are either a circle or a l...

Rugby football players know that skin infections may be transmitted by bodily contact. Forwards in particular are likely to develop facial lesions from face-to-face contact in scrums. Players refer to the skin lesions by various names including "scrum-pox," "prop-pox," and "impetigo." Some of these infections are undoubtedly bacterial and there have been cases of herpes simplex-1 and vaccinia4 ...