Herpes simplex virus (HSV) latency in sensory ganglion neurons is well documented, but the existence of extraneuronal corneal latency is less well defined. To investigate the possibility of extraneuronal latency during ocular HSV infection, corneal specimens from 18 patients with quiescent herpes simplex keratitis (HSK) were obtained at the time of keratoplasty. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) ...

Heliothis zea nudivirus-1 (HzNV-1) is an insect virus previously known as Hz-1 baculovirus. One of its major early genes, hhi1, is responsible for the establishment of productive viral infection; another gene, pag1, which expresses a non-coding RNA, is the only viral transcript detectable during viral latency. Here we showed that this non-coding RNA was further processed into at least two disti...

During herpes simplex virus latency, transcripts accumulate from a single transcription unit of the viral genome. The promoter for these latency-associated transcripts (LAT) has been located, and a number of studies have documented the specific regions of this promoter which are important in transient assays of neuronal cells in culture. To examine the regulation of this promoter from the viral...

A complex interaction has evolved between the host's peripheral nervous system (PNS) and herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1). Sensory neurons are permissive for viral replication, yet the virus can also enter a latent state in these cells. The interplay of viral and neuronal signals that regulate the switch between the viral lytic and latent states is not understood. The latency-associated tran...