Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 That Exhibits Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 Sensitivity to (E)-5-(2-Bromovinyl)-2′-Deoxyuridine

A clinical isolate, designated 145, of herpes simplex virus (HSV) had type 1 characteristics as determined by monoclonal antibody immunofluorescence, heat stability of viral thymidine kinase (TK), BamHI restriction endonuclease pattern, and absence of the HSV-2-specific 38-kD protein. However, instead of being sensitive to E-5-(2-bromovinyl)-2'-deoxyuridine (BVDU) like HSV-1, isolate 145 displayed a resistance pattern like HSV-2 to the drug as determined by viral replication and viral DNA synthesis. Because BVDU is activated by viral TK phosphorylation, we cloned the TK-containing DNA region from isolate 145 and compared it by restriction mapping using several endonucleases to similar regions of HSV-1 and HSV-2. In each instance, the patterns for HSV-1 and isolate 145 were identical to each other, but distinct from the patterns for the corresponding region of HSV-2, suggesting that the genome TK region of isolate 145 was HSV-1-like.