Isolation and characterization of HSV-1 mRNA

High-resolution characterization of herpes simplex virus type 1 transcripts encoding alkaline exonuclease and a 50,000-dalton protein tentatively identified as a capsid protein

“…This relative abundancy difference with time after infection suggested that the 2.3-kb mRNA is an early (p) mRNA, whereas the 1.9-, 3.9-, and 4.5-kb species are late (P,y) species. Criteria for temporal classification of specific mRNA species have been described in several recent reviews (31,35,36).…”

The Kinetics of VP5 mRNA Expression Is Not Critical for Viral Replication in Cultured Cells

“…Late transcripts, many of which encode proteins involved in virus morphogenesis and maturation, have been divided into two subclasses: leaky-late (␥1) and strict-late (␥2). The former class of transcripts is expressed at appreciable levels prior to the initiation or in the absence of genome replication, and thus, expression of proteins encoded by them is not particularly sensitive to inhibitors of DNA replication (2,21,28,34,35).This general pattern of regulated gene expression is typical of productive infection by the vast majority of DNA-containing viruses, but the actual mechanisms by which different viruses achieve this regulation differ. In the case of HSV, a major point of regulation is at the level of transcription, and we have demonstrated that both the kinetics and level of expression of a particular transcript are largely dictated by its promoter architecture (1,6,9,25,26,29,38).…”

“…Late transcripts, many of which encode proteins involved in virus morphogenesis and maturation, have been divided into two subclasses: leaky-late (␥1) and strict-late (␥2). The former class of transcripts is expressed at appreciable levels prior to the initiation or in the absence of genome replication, and thus, expression of proteins encoded by them is not particularly sensitive to inhibitors of DNA replication (2,21,28,34,35).…”