Shingles Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Shingles, including details on symptoms, treatment, causes, virus.

Recruitment of the transcriptional coactivator HCF-1 to viral immediate-early promoters during initiation of reactivation from latency of herpes simplex virus type 1.

Whitlow Z, Kristie TM

Molecular Genetics Section, Laboratory of Viral Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.

The transcriptional coactivator host cell factor 1 (HCF-1) is critical for the expression of immediate-early (IE) genes of the alphaherpesviruses herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and varicella-zoster virus. HCF-1 may also be involved in the reactivation of these viruses from latency as it is sequestered in the cytoplasm of sensory neurons but is rapidly relocalized to the nucleus upon stimulation that results in reactivation. Here, chromatin immunoprecipitation assays demonstrate that HCF-1 is recruited to IE promoters of viral genomes during the initiation of reactivation, correlating with RNA polymerase II occupancy and IE expression. The data support the model whereby HCF-1 plays a pivotal role in the reactivation of HSV-1 from latency.

Published 20 August 2009 in J Virol, 83(18): 9591-5.
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