Fig 7. The NxN1/2 mutation in ICP0 leads to impaired replication in the TG and brain stem of C57Bl/6J mice.

At day 3, 5 and 7 post infection (p.i.), (A) the trigeminal ganglia (TG), and (B) brain stem was extracted from HSV-2-ICP0-GFP and HSV-2-ICP0^NxN1/2-GFP infected mice, homogenized and viral titers were determined as in Fig 6. Symbols represent individual animals; floating bars represent the mean ± SEM. Titer differences were determined by the Mann-Whitney test. (C) Half of the homogenized TG tissue from panel A, and (D) half of the tissue from panel B was lysed and total DNA was isolated to determine viral genome copy numbers. Oligonucleotide-primers specific for the HSV-2 U_L27 gene were used and copy numbers were normalized to murine β-actin sequences. Each symbol represents the relative genome number of an individual animal, relative to the genome copy number of a single HSV-2-ICP0-GFP infected mouse, which was set as 100%. Floating bars represent the mean ± SEM. Statistical differences were determined as above.