“…Two of these glycoproteins, gE and gI, have been shown to be important for virulence and spread of several herpesviruses in all animal models tested (2, 9-11, 27, 33, 34, 39, 52, 55). Although dispensable for replication in cultured cells, the genes for gE and gI are conserved in all alphaherpesviruses studied to date (3,19,37,39,48). The gE and gI proteins in alphaherpesviruses associate with each other soon after synthesis and form a noncovalent hetero-oligomeric complex (28,29,55,56,60).…”