Varicella zoster virus (VZV) is an important pathogen after renal transplantation. In the present study, we examined the prevalence, clinical presentation and outcome of VZV infections in renal transplant recipients. Charts and medical records of adult renal allotransplant recipients were investigated to find patients with VZV infection. From December 1972 until July 2010, 1,139 patients receiv...

A real-time PCR assay was developed to identify varicella-zoster virus (VZV) and herpes simplex virus (HSV) DNA in clinical specimens from subjects with suspected herpes zoster (HZ; shingles). Three sets of primers and probes were used in separate PCR reactions to detect and discriminate among wild-type VZV (VZV-WT), Oka vaccine strain VZV (VZV-Oka), and HSV DNA, and the reaction for each virus...

Varicella zoster virus (VZV) is the herpesvirus which causes the childhood disease varicella, also known as chickenpox, and the adult disease herpes zoster, also known as shingles. These distinct diseases are separated by a lengthy period of latency, often lasting decades, in which the virus resides within the ganglia of the host. VZV latency and reactivation from it have, for the most part, be...

In economically developed countries over 95% of healthy adults have been exposed to varicella zoster virus (VZV) during childhood1). Therefore, not only primary infection but also reactivation with VZV are considered to be quite benign, and little consideration is given to the concomitant morbidity and mortality. It is the adult patient, along with the immunocompromised patient of any age, howe...

The SCID-hu mouse implanted with human fetal tissue is a novel model for investigating human viral pathogenesis. Infection of human skin implants was used to investigate the basis for the clinical attenuation of the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) strain, V-Oka, from which the newly licensed vaccine is made. The pathogenicity of V-Oka was compared with that of its parent, P-Oka, another low-passag...

Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) results in a lifelong latent infection in human sensory and cranial nerve ganglia after primary infection. VZV open reading frame 47 (ORF47) and ORF66 encode protein kinases that phosphorylate several viral proteins, including VZV glycoprotein gE and ORF32, ORF62, and ORF63 proteins. Here we show that the ORF47 protein kinase also phosphorylates gI. While ORF47 is e...

Highly pure (>95%) terminally differentiated neurons derived from pluripotent stem cells appear healthy at 2 weeks after infection with varicella-zoster virus (VZV), and the cell culture medium contains no infectious virus. Analysis of the healthy-appearing neurons revealed VZV DNA, transcripts, and proteins corresponding to the VZV immediate early, early, and late kinetic phases of replication...

6-Methoxypurine arabinoside (ara-M) is a highly selective inhibitor of varicella-zoster virus (VZV). It belongs to a class of purine arabinosides whose anti-VZV activity in vitro correlates with substrate utilization by the VZV-encoded thymidine kinase (TK) (D. R. Averett, G. W. Koszalka, J. A. Fyfe, G. B. Roberts, D. J. M. Purifoy, and T. A. Krenitsky, Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 35:851-857, ...

Dendritic cells (DC) are antigen-presenting cells essential for initiating primary immune responses and therefore an ideal target for viral immune evasion. Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) can productively infect immature human DCs and impair their function as immune effectors by inhibiting their maturation, as evidenced by the expression modulation of functionally important cell surface immune mol...