Keeping Herpes Infection In Check: Researchers Describe Immune System Strategies
Thursday, October 9, 2008 - 15:14
in Health & Medicine
Herpes simplex virus type I can cause bouts of cold sores, blindness and potentially lethal encephalitis when it reawakens from a quiescent state in the nerve cells it infects. To prevent these consequences, the stealthy virus is kept under constant guard by the immune system, say University of Pittsburgh scientists. Their research challenges the once common notion that latent HSV-1 in sensory neurons is invisible to the immune system.