Interferons regulate the phenotype of wild-type and mutant herpes simplex viruses in vivo.

Mutants in virion host shutoff ( vhs ) and ICP34.5 were of particular interest in these studies, primarily because the highly significant degree of attenuation of such mutants in vivo suggests a strong role for host factors in determining the mutant phenotype given their near wild-type replication in culture ( 9 , 29 ). vhs is a tegument protein that induces the destabilization of host mRNA, leading to rapid cessation of host protein synthesis after infection ( 30 ). vhs also degrades viral mRNAs and serves to facilitate the transition of viral gene expression from one kinetic class to the next.

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