Herpes vaccine edges closer to reality

SYDNEY - With an aim to developing vaccines for Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) that causes serious brain disease and infections in newborns, scientists are researching on how immune cells behave during the infection.

“Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) causes cold sore, genital herpes, serious brain disease and newborn-infections,” said Cheryl Jones, lead investigator and associate professor, University of Sydney.

“The skin represents a major entry point; therefore, understanding how immune cells behave during the infection is of vital importance to researchers trying to find a cure for HSV,” said Jones.

“HSV infection of the skin and genital mucosa are important for the promotion and transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.”

Jones said the research was the result of a joint collaboration between the Sydney Medical School, Kids Research Institute at Children’s Hospital at Westmead, the Centenary Institute and the Westmead Millennium Institute.

“We used fluorescent viruses and mice in which immune cells were tagged with green fluorescent protein to study how the HSV virus affects immune cells after it enters the skin,” she said.

“We found that HSV can infect Langerhans cells, the immune cells in the top layer of the skin, but instead of making them exit the skin to the Lymph nodes to switch on a stronger immune response, they become sticky and die.”

Other types of immune cells deeper in the skin appear to be more important in this regard.

“We also showed for the first time that gamma delta T-cells in the skin can be infected with HSV very soon after infection,” added Jones.

“We are still investigating what effect they have, but together this work provides important information for developing topical microbicides and vaccines against the viruses.

“Potentially, we may be on the right track for a new discovery,” Jones said, according to a University of Sydney release.

The paper was published in the Journal of Immunology.