[Dynamics of the formation of antibodies to surface and internal proteins of the herpes simplex virus in a model experiment on rabbits]

Abstract

It has been shown by immunoblotting that antibodies to HSV-1 nucleocapsid proteins (39-45K) predominate at the early stages of infection (up to day 21 after infection) in rabbits. At later stages (up to day 75) the intensity of bands corresponding to virus-specific glycoproteins (presumably gD, gE, gC) increases. At the same time the level of antibodies to nucleocapsid proteins diminishes. In ELISA the same pattern was obtained using envelope and nucleo-capsid proteins denatured by SDS and 2-mercaptoethanol. The possibility of using individual HSV antigens for the development of highly specific diagnostic ELISA test-systems is discussed.