FIGURE 3.

Herpes simplex virus 1 UL2 targets at or downstream of the p65 level to suppress NF-κB pathway. HEK293T cells were cotransfected with reporter plasmids NF-κB–Luc, pRL-TK, and 100 ng of TRADD (A), TAK1 (B), TRAF2 (C), RIP1 (D), NIK (E), IKKα (F), IKKβ (G), or p65 (H) expression plasmid along with the indicated amounts (100, 250, and 500 ng) of UL2-Flag or UL2-HA expression plasmid, and then luciferase activity was analyzed as described in Figure 1. Cell lysates were analyzed by WB with corresponding tag-specific Abs to detect the expression of related plasmids, and β-actin was used to verify equal loading of protein in each lane. Data were expressed as means ± SD from three independent experiments. **P < 0.01 and ***P < 0.001.