Disease parameters following ocular herpes simplex virus type 1 infection are similar in male and female BALB/C mice

Sex-related differences in the incidence or severity of infection have been described for multiple viruses. With herpes simplex viruses, the best example is HSV-2 genital infection where women have a higher incidence of infection and can have more severe infections than men. HSV-1 causes several types of infections including skin and mucosal ulcers, keratitis, and encephalitis in humans that do not appear to have a strong biological sex component. Given that mouse strains differ in their MHC loci it is important to determine if sex differences occur in multiple strains of mice. Our goal was to answer two questions: Are virus-related sex differences present in BALB/C mice and does virulence of the viral strain have an effect? We generated a panel of recombinant HSV-1 viruses with differing virulence phenotypes and characterized multiple clinical correlates of ocular infection in BALB/c mice. We found no sex-specific differences in blepharitis, corneal clouding, neurovirulence, and viral ..., Ethics Statement
This study was carried out in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. The protocol was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Wisconsin (Protocol Number: M006440). All corneal scarification, disease scoring, tear film collection was performed under isoflurane anesthesia. Sustained release buprenorphine was used for analgesia. Euthanasia was carried out by first anesthetizing the mice with isoflurane and then performing cervical dislocation.
Cells 
Vero cells (CCL-81; ATCC, Manassas, VA, USA) were used for producing viral stocks generating viral DNA. The cells were propagated in Dulbecco’s modified Eagles medium (DMEM), supplemented with 5% serum (1:1 ratio of bovine calf and fetal bovine serum) plus antibiotics and grown at 37oC with 5% CO2.
Viruses
The HSV-1 viruses in this study were recombinants generated by mixed corneal infectio..., Microsoft Excel, Data tables
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