TABLE 1.

Permissivity of currently available in vivo and in vitro systems for modeling VZV infection, latency, and reactivation.

Model	DNA in infected tissue	DNA in neurons/ganglia	RNA	Protein	Replication	Spread	Latency/Quiescence	Reactivation
In vivo
Mice	✓	✓
Rat	✓	✓	✓
Cotton rat	✓	✓	✓
Guinea pig*	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	?
SCID-hu mouse/human xenograft†	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
In vitro
Rat primary/progenitor cells	✓	✓	✓
Immortalized human neuron-like cells	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Differentiated human neural progenitor lines	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
hiPSC-derived neurons	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
hESC-derived neurons	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓

While many models support VZV infection and limited viral RNA and protein expression programs, VZV replication and spread are limited to guinea pigs and human cells that are permissive for the full lytic virus life cycle. hESC-derived neurons are the only model in which experimental reactivation of a quiescent VZV infection has been reliably achieved. It has been claimed that the guinea pig model supports experimental reactivation. ^*Most studies use guinea pig adapted VZV. ^†In human tissue graft.