Figure 6.

VP11/12 tegument protein is involved in the GA fragmentation triggered by HSV1 infection in neurons. (A) Cortical primary neurons were mock-infected (MOCK) or either infected with wild type HSV-1 or a deleted HSV-1 version that lacks the viral gene UL46 (HSV-1 ΔUL46) coding for VP11/12 protein. After 4, 8, and 18 h post-infection (hpi) cells were fixed, permeabilized, and immunostained for Giantin (Golgi marker protein, green) and ICP8 (viral infection marker, red). Merging green and red channels generated the third image show in each row. Nuclei were visualized with DAPI. Scale bar, 5 μm. (B) Quantitation of the average distance of Giantin positive structures to the nucleus (μm) under the conditions described in (A). Bars represent the mean ± SD of three independent experiments. ^***p < 0.001, ^**p < 0.01, ^*p < 0.05; ns, non-significant compare to the MOCK. Brackets display treatment comparisons. (C) Neuronal cultures were harvested at these times and the production of infectious viral progeny was measured in the supernatants by a standard TDCI 50 assay.