Читать книгу Basic Virology - Martinez J. Hewlett - Страница 51

HSV infection in the eye or the footpad of mice can lead to a localized infection with spread of virus to the CNS and then to the brain. Although some animals die, as shown in Figure 3.6, survivors maintain a latent infection in sensory nerve ganglia. During this latent infection, no infectious virus can be recovered from nerve tissue, but if the nerve ganglia are explanted (dissected, dissociated, and maintained on a feeder layer of cultured cells), virus will eventually appear and begin to replicate. This observation demonstrates both that the viral genome is intact in the latently infected neuron, and that virus is not present in infectious form until something else occurs.

This model is quite useful for the study of genetic and other parameters during establishment and maintenance of a latent infection. For example, the sensory neurons can be isolated and viral DNA can be recovered. But since mice do not efficiently reactivate HSV, the physiological process of reactivation, where virus can be recovered at the site of initial infection, cannot be effectively studied in mice.