New paper by Szpara lab explores rare transmission of herpes simplex virus

A new paper by members of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department, including 
Mackenzie Shipley, Daniel Renner, Utsav Panter, Moriah Szpara, and colleagues, has been published online in the journal Cold Spring Harbor Molecular Case Studies. The paper, titled “Personalized viral genomic investigation of herpes simplex virus 1 perinatal viremic transmission with dual fatality” describes the team’s personalized viral genomics approach to study a rare case of transmission of the herpes simple virus. The paper’s scientific abstract appears below:

"Here we present a personalized viral genomics approach to investigating a rare case of perinatal herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) transmission that ended in death of both mother and neonate. We sought to determine whether the virus involved in this rare case had any unusual features that may have contributed to the dire patient outcome. A pregnant woman with negative HerpeSelect antibody test underwent cesarean section at 30 weeks gestation and died the same day. The premature newborn died 5 days later. Both individuals were found postmortem to have positive blood HSV-1 PCR tests. Using oligonucleotide enrichment and deep sequencing, we determined that viral transmission from mother to infant was nearly perfect at the consensus genome level. At the virus population level, 77% of minor variants in the mother's blood also appeared on the neonate's skin, of which more than half were disseminated into the neonate's blood. We also detected non-maternal minor variants that arose de novo in the neonate’s viral populations. Of note, one de novo minor variant in the neonate's skin virus induced a non-synonymous mutation in the UL6 protein, which is a component of the portal that allows DNA entry into new progeny capsids. This case suggests that perinatal viremic HSV-1 transmission includes the majority of genetic diversity from the maternal virus population and that new, non-synonymous mutations can occur after relatively few rounds of replication. This report expands our understanding of viral transmission in humans, and may lead to improved diagnostic strategies for neonatal HSV-1 acquisition."