Clinical isolate of herpes simplex virus type 2 that induces a thymidine kinase with altered substrate specificity

Substrate Diversity of Herpes Simplex Virus Thymidine Kinase

Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV 1) thymidine kinase (TK) exhibits an extensive substrate diversity for nucleobases and sugar moieties, in contrast to other TKs. This substrate diversity is the crucial molecular basis of selective antiviral and suicide gene therapy. The mechanisms of substrate binding of HSV 1 TK were studied by means of site-directed mutagenesis combined with isothermal calori...

The Role of Herpes Simplex Virus-1 Thymidine Kinase Alanine 168 in Substrate Specificity

Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV) thymidine kinase (TK) has been widely used in suicide gene therapy for the treatment of cancer due to its broad substrate specificity and the inability of the endogenous human TK to phosphorylate guanosine analogs such as ganciclovir (GCV). The basis of suicide gene therapy is the introduction of a gene that encodes a prodrug-activating enzyme into tumor cells....

PCR detection of thymidine kinase gen of latent herpes simplex Virus type 1 in mice trigeminal ganglia

  Herpes simplex virus type 1 establishes a latent infection in the peripheral nervous system following primary infection. During latent infection, virus genome exhibit limited transcription, with the HSV LATs consistently detected in latency infected ganaglia. Following ocular infection viral latency develops in the trigeminal ganglia. In this study PCR has been used for detection of HSV-1 nuc...

Restriction Enzyme Analysis of Thymidine Kinase Gene in Four Iranian Isolates of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1

Altered properties of thymidine kinase after infection of mouse fibroblast cells with herpes simplex virus.

Previous studies have shown that, after infection by herpes simplex virus (HSV) or vaccinia virus, thymidine kinase activity was induced in either LM mouse fibroblast cells or LM(TK-) cells, a mutant subline lacking this enzyme activity. At 5 to 7 hr after infection, the enzyme activities induced by these viruses in the LM(TK-) cells were about three times as high as those found in exponentiall...