Fig 2.

Intensities of antibody responses from HSV-1- and HSV-2-seropositive individuals against HSV-1 and HSV-2 antigens. (A) Heat map overview of broadly targeted HSV-1 and HSV-2 immunodominant antigens determined by the intensities of antibody responses. Columns correspond to sera used to probe the array, and rows are arrayed antigens. Sera were serotyped by using FocuSelect 1 and 2 IgG ELISAs (Focus Diagnostics), as shown at the top, and were used as the reference for sample categorizations. The patient sera were thus classified into seronegative (n = 47), HSV-1-seropositive-only (n = 32), HSV-2-seropositive-only (n = 6), and HSV-1- and HSV-2-seropositive (n = 5) groups. For comparison, sera from the general population were probed (n = 21). Only those antigens that were reactive against sera from the HSV-1- or HSV-2-seropositive populations are shown. An antigen was defined as reactive when the average signal intensity for a donor population was more than the mean plus 2 SD of the control spots consisting of IVTT reaction mixtures lacking a DNA template (C plus 2 SD). The HSV-1 antigens are ranked by descending average signal intensity of the HSV-1-seropositive population, and the HSV-2 antigens are similarly ranked by the HSV-2-positive population. In each case, only the top 15 antigens are shown. The sera are also ranked from left to right within each group by the increasing sum of the signals. The heat map was generated from log-normalized data that were retransformed to approximate raw values, and the signal was converted into a color (red, high; green, low). (B) Representative data for serum antibodies from two HSV-2-seropositive individuals recognizing protein microarrays derived from HSV-2 ORFs. IgG antibodies from seropositive individuals 6 and 27 reacted strongly to 7 and 11 ORFs, respectively.