Journal
VIRUSES-BASEL
Volume 12, Issue 8, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/v12080860
Keywords
HSV-1; HSV-2; HSV typing assays; UL27; glycoprotein B; recombination; genomic variation
Categories
Funding
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) [5T32AI118690-04 T32]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Human herpes simplex viruses (HSV) 1 and 2 are extremely common human pathogens with overlapping disease spectra. Infections due to HSV-1 and HSV-2 are distinguished in clinical settings using sequence-based typing assays. Here we describe a case of HSV mistyping caused by a previously undescribed HSV-1 x HSV-2 recombination event in UL27, the HSV gene that encodes glycoprotein B. This is the first documented case of HSV mistyping caused by an HSV-1 x HSV-2 recombination event and the first description of an HSV interspecies recombination event in UL27, which is frequently used as a target for diagnostics and experimental therapeutics. We also review the primer and probe target sequences for a commonly used HSV typing assay from nearly 700 HSV-1 and HSV-2 samples and find that about 4% of HSV-1 samples have a single nucleotide change in at least one of these loci, which could impact assay performance. Our findings illustrate how knowledge of naturally occurring genomic variation in HSV-1 and HSV-2 is essential for the design and interpretation of molecular diagnostics for these viruses.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available