ABSTRACT
The advances in understanding of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) on the molecular level have been derived by using the powerful new tools of contemporary biology: monoclonal antibodies, immunoprecipitation, recombinant DNA, hybrid selection coupled with in vitro translation and immunoprecipitation, prokaryotic open reading frame expression vectors, blot and in situ hybridization, and direct DNA sequencing. In an attempt to overcome some of the technical difficulties, K. Shiraki and colleagues applied methionine-labeled DNA-binding proteins from VZV-infected cells to an affinity column coupled to anti-VZV serum, and then analyzed the affinity bound proteins by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and fluorography. The techniques of contemporary molecular genetics, coupled with the incisive work of investigators, will provide the answers to these fundamental questions concerning the natural history of VZV infection. This chapter examines the VZV DNAs under code, along with standard VZV DNAs, as has been used successfully in herpes simplex virus molecular epidemiology.
