Fig 6.
gE2-del immunization protects guinea pigs against HSV-2 vaginal challenge. Guinea pigs were mock immunized or immunized i.m. twice with 5 × 105 PFU gE2-del virus and were challenged with 5 × 105 PFU HSV-2 MS. Five guinea pigs were in the mock group, and 10 were in the gE2-del group. (A) Survival kinetics. (B) Vaginal disease scores for surviving animals only. (C) Vaginal viral titers. Results in panel B represent means ± SEM, while those in panel C represent geometric mean titers ± SEM. (D) Recurrent vaginal shedding of HSV-2 DNA was evaluated for 20 days, from days 28 to 47 postinfection. The table summarizes the number of episodes of shedding of 151 to 1,000 copies, 1,001 to 100,000 copies, or >100,000 copies of HSV-2 Us9 DNA.