Figure 2. HSV-2 replicates and is contained in widely dispersed microenvironments across the genital tract.
(A) HSV shedding quantity in a participant, who underwent daily swabs in 23 regions across the genital tract for 30 days; days without sampling are marked with an X; stars denote days with a lesion; virus is widely dispersed and several prolonged episodes with heterogeneous viral loads across the genital tract are noted. (B) Increasing probability of episode re-expansion (nonmonotonic episodes) as a function of peak episode copy number among 1020 episodes from 531 study subjects; individual peaks during episodes may represent virus from a single ulcer that can seed other regions. (C) A genital lesion consists of numerous round ulcers (black dotted circle) clustered in space; contemporaneous presence of multiple ulcers may indicate concurrent viral expansion in decay in multiple regions. (D) and (E) Immunofluorescent staining of biopsies performed (D) at the edge, and (E) 1 cm away from an ulcer 3 days post-healing; CD8+ T cells (green) at the dermal–epidermal junction (arrow) are highly localized to ulcer edge (287/mm2) and are fourfold less dense 1 cm away (72/mm2).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00288.013
Figure 2—figure supplement 1. Spatial features of HSV genital tract shedding.
Figure 2—figure supplement 2. Spatial features of HSV-2 lesions.
Figure 2—figure supplement 3. Spatial features of CD8+ T-cell response in genital skin.
