FIG 2.

HSV-1 enters gingival epithelia. (a) Hematoxylin and eosin (HE)-stained section of gingival mucosa visualizes the stratified epithelium (e) and the underlying lamina propria (lp). (b and c) Epithelial sheets from gingival mucosa were separated from the lamina propria by dispase II and infected with HSV-1 at 100 PFU/cell. (b) Immunostainings of sections show ICP0-expressing cells (green) in the basal layer at 3 h p.i. and viral spreading to the upper layers at 6 h p.i. with DAPI (blue) as nuclear counterstain. (c) Infected whole mounts showing the basal keratinocyte layer were stained for ICP0 (green) and keratin 14 (red). ICP0-expressing cells were mostly found in clusters. A 2-fold magnification of the boxed area is added. Single immunofluorescence is shown. Bars represent 50 μm in panel a and 100 μm in panels b and c.