Failure of Thymidine Kinase-Negative Herpes Simplex Virus To Reactivate from Latency following Efficient Establishment

Thymidine kinase-negative mutants of herpes simplex virus did not reactivate from latency in mouse trigeminal ganglia, even when their latent viral loads were comparable to those that permitted reactivation by wild-type virus. Thus, reduced establishment of latency does not suffice to account for the failure to reactivate.