ABSTRACT
Our knowledge of the pathogenesis, natural history, treatment, and molecular biology of herpes simplex virus (HSV) and its resultant infections has increased dramatically over the past decade. These advances, in part, paralleled the development of antiviral drugs that are selective and specific inhibitors of viral replication. The unequivocal establishment of the value of antiviral therapy has had a major impact on altering the severity of human disease and has major implications for long-range control of HSV infections. Nevertheless, no studies have indicated that therapy interrupts transmission of infection. Furthermore, some clinical diseases (e.g., herpes simplex encephalitis and neonatal HSV infections) are still associated with significant mortality and morbidity despite antiviral therapy. Even with the rapidly evolving knowledge of the molecular biology of HSV, the development of a successful vaccine-either subunit or live attenuated-has eluded the biomedical investigator. The past decade has witnessed increasing insight into viral gene structure and function, particularly those genes responsible for latency, virulence, and host immune responses. Such advances have been recently summarized [1]. Our current level of biomedical knowledge sets a stage for the application of molecular biology to the evaluation of human disease, the development of genetically engineered vaccines, and the potential for the development of antiviral therapeutics predicated upon newly identified site-specific molecular targets [2,3].
