Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:2.7.1.21 (thymidine kinase)
 7,561 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Studying the pathogenesis of vaginal infections in mice with two variants of Herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) strain ER we observed that both variants ER+ and ER- caused severe vaginitis but only ER+ invaded the CNS leading to lethal neurological disease. In contrast, mice infected with ER- cleared the virus from the vagina and recovered from infection. ER+ and ER- expressed equal levels of thymidine kinase (TK) indicating a TK-independent difference in neurovirulence. Using the non-neurovirulent variant ER-, we were able to investigate humoral immune responses later after infection. Vaginal infection with ER- suppressed serum antibody formation after a secondary systemic HSV-1 infection. Fresh isolates of HSV-1 and HSV-2 caused uniformly a lethal neurological disease after vaginal inoculation of mice. However, some animals survived an intraperitoneal infection with these isolates. Infection with HSV-1 isolates stimulated a strong antibody production, whereas infection with HSV-2 isolates suppressed antibody formation, thus supporting earlier results from our group obtained with laboratory strains. Since suppression of antibody formation could be demonstrated with clinical HSV-2 isolates and likewise after vaginal infection with HSV-2 variant ER- we consider this phenomenon to be of relevance in human genital HSV-2 infections. Vaginal infection of mice with variant ER- represents a new model for primary genital HSV-2 infections; this model could be useful for histopathological, virological, immunological and drug testing studies.
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PMID:Vaginal infection of mice with HSV type 2 variant ER-: a new animal model for human primary genital HSV type 2 infections. 131 25

In guinea pigs, thymidine kinase-producing strains of herpes simplex virus type 2 replicated to high titer in the vagina and spinal cord, and animals developed severe clinical disease. Infection with thymidine kinase-deficient virus resulted in similar vaginal virus titers; however, animals exhibited little or no clinical illness and only low titers of virus were detected in spinal cord homogenate cultures. Neural and extraneural latent infection as well as recurrent infection were noted in animals inoculated with either thymidine kinase-producing or -deficient viruses. These data suggest that neural pathways are important in the pathogenesis of genital herpes and that virus-coded thymidine kinase may influence virulence but is not required for latency.
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PMID:Thymidine kinase-deficient herpes simplex virus type 2 genital infection in guinea pigs. 299 58

A study of the genetic variability of herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 1 from recurrent lesions and clinical reinfections was done using restriction endonuclease analysis and the RNase A mismatch cleavage method. Comparative genetic analyses of HSV-1 recurrent isolates from 1 patient and of HSV-1 isolates from different anatomic areas (vagina and lip) from another patient showed differences only in the glycoprotein B gene but not in the thymidine kinase gene even though the viruses had the same restriction endonuclease pattern. These results suggest the RNase A mismatch cleavage method is useful for epidemiologic studies of DNA viruses.
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PMID:Genetic analysis of herpes simplex virus type 1 isolates from recurrent lesions and clinical reinfections. 759 26