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Autophagy Quantification and STAT3 Expression in a Human Skin Organ Culture Model for Innate Immunity to Herpes Zoster
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Autophagy Quantification and STAT3 Expression in a Human Skin Organ Culture Model for Innate Immunity to Herpes Zoster

Erin M Buckingham, James Girsch, Wallen Jackson, Jeffrey I Cohen and Charles Grose
Frontiers in microbiology, Vol.9, pp.2935-2935
12/05/2018
DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.02935
PMCID: PMC6290052
PMID: 30568636
url
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.02935View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

The goal of this project was to document the autophagy response in human neonatal skin organ culture (SOC) after infection with varicella-zoster virus (VZV). The VZV-infected SOC model has attributes of herpes zoster, in that an injection of virus into the skin is analogous to exit of virus from the sensory nerve termini into skin during herpes zoster. Cultures were maintained for 28 days and periodically examined for an autophagy response by quantitation of autophagosomes with Imaris software. Expression of the STAT3 protein was plentiful in the VZV-infected SOC. Abundant autophagy was observed in VZV-infected SOC between 14 and 28 days after infection, while autophagy in mock-infected SOC was minimal ( p = 0.0003). The autophagic response after infection of SOC with a recombinant VZV genome containing the herpes simplex virus ICP34.5 neurovirulence gene was similar to wild-type VZV ( p = 0.3). These results suggested that the VZV-infected SOC system resembled biopsy data from herpes zoster infection of skin. An enhanced autophagy response has now been reported after infection with two additional alpha herpesviruses besides VZV, namely, pseudorabies virus and duck enteritis herpes virus; both lack the ICP34.5 protein.
herpes simplex virus varicella-zoster virus Microbiology Imaris software pseudorabies virus HSV ICP34.5 autophagosome interleukin-6 ATG5

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