? Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a neurotropic herpesvirus that can establish lifelong infections in its human host through latent maintenance in the ganglia of sensory neurons. Because of their wide host range, efficient infection, long-term persistence, capacity to accommodate large amounts of foreign DNA, and ability to deliver genes to post-mitotic cell types, HSV has showed considerable promise to establish long-term gene expression in most cells, particularly in neurons where other systems have low efficiency. Helper-free and amplicon HSV vectors have deletions in one or more essential viral genes and can be used to express transgenes by replacing other non-essential viral genes.

Several unique features of HSV-1 make vectors derived from this virus very appealing for preventive or therapeutic gene transfer. These include:

• Delivery of large transgenes to the nucleus of mammalian cells.
• Non-integrating, but can replicate separately from host cell genome.
• The ability to invade and establish lifelong non-toxic latent infections in neurons; can establish stable transgene expression.
• Based on the HSV amplicon packaging method, which yields higher titers and has lower toxicity.

? By pairing this technology with our expertise in virus packaging, abm offers custom HSV-1 Virus subcloning and virus production, allowing high level gene expression in host cells.