Detection of a new variant of herpes simplex virus type 2 among HIV-1-infected individuals

Molecular Characterization of Herpes Simplex Virus 2 Strains by Analysis of Microsatellite Polymorphism

“…The HSV-2 isolates were selected retrospectively from viral isolates obtained in cell culture and stored in the laboratory between 2005 and 2012, in order to obtain a range of viruses collected from both immunocompetent and immunosuppressed (mainly HIV-infected) patients and recovered from different body sites (i.e., anal, genital, buttock, ear, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and back specimens). This selection allowed comparison of isolates from epidemiologically unrelated patients (isolates 1 to 43), sequential isolates corresponding to recurrent episodes in the same individuals, for which resistance to antivirals was investigated (isolates 44 to 46), and isolates recently described and belonging to a new HSV-2 genetic variant (designated HSV-2v; isolates 47 to 50) (20). All HSV-2 isolates were recovered from patients originating from European countries (mainly France) except for isolates 47 to 50, which were obtained from patients from West Africa (20).…”

“…This selection allowed comparison of isolates from epidemiologically unrelated patients (isolates 1 to 43), sequential isolates corresponding to recurrent episodes in the same individuals, for which resistance to antivirals was investigated (isolates 44 to 46), and isolates recently described and belonging to a new HSV-2 genetic variant (designated HSV-2v; isolates 47 to 50) (20). All HSV-2 isolates were recovered from patients originating from European countries (mainly France) except for isolates 47 to 50, which were obtained from patients from West Africa (20). Both HSV-2 clinical isolates and laboratory strains were propagated in Vero cell cultures, as described previously (21).…”

Genetic Diversity within Alphaherpesviruses: Characterization of a Novel Variant of Herpes Simplex Virus 2

“…In 2009, we used genotypic methods to investigate the drug susceptibility of a HSV-2 isolate recovered from a genital sample from a 46-year-old HIV-1-infected man (9,16). Sequence analysis revealed an unexpectedly high rate of divergence of 2.4% for the UL30 DNA polymerase gene, contrasting with a low rate of divergence of 0.3% for the UL23 thymidine kinase (TK) gene.…”

“…A variant-specific real-time PCR assay targeting the hypervariable region of the UL30 gene, which was considered to be a specific molecular signature, led to the identification of three other HSV-2 variants, designated HSV-2v, with respect to classical HSV-2 (HSV-2c). These four HSV-2v isolates were all obtained from patients from West Africa with HIV-1 coinfection (16). The objective of this study was to identify additional isolates of HSV-2v for a more detailed characterization of the prevalence and epidemiological, genotypic, and phenotypic features of this new genetic variant of HSV-2.…”

Ancient recombination events between human herpes simplex viruses

“…Most HSV-2 open reading frames (ORF) exhibit little (if any) variability. Yet we recently discovered a HSV-2 variant (HSV-2v) characterized by unusually divergent UL30 gene sequences (maximum divergence of 2.4%; Burrel et al 2013Burrel et al , 2015. Although HSV-2 genomic diversity is only weakly, if at all, geographically structured (Kolb et al 2015;Newman et al 2015), this new variant was also exceptional in that it was mainly recovered from subSaharan African individuals.…”