2011 年 64 巻 2 号 p. 121-126
Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) infections in a child with congenital immunodeficiency syndrome were observed over a 10-year period. The child suffered from recurrent and severe HSV-1 mucocutaneous infections. He frequently suffered from acyclovir (ACV)-resistant (ACVr) HSV-1 infection in the later phase of his life, especially after the episode of ACVr HSV-1 infection. Virological analyses on the HSV-1 isolates recovered from this patient revealed that all the ACVr HSV-1 isolates were thymidine kinase (TK)-negative (TK-) due to a single cytosine (C) deletion within the 4-C residues (positions 1061 to 1064) in the TK gene, indicating that the recurrent TK-/ACVr HSV-1 infections throughout the patient's life were due to the identical ACVr HSV-1 strain. Furthermore, it was found that the ACV-sensitive (ACVs) isolate recovered from the skin lesions that appeared between the episodes of ACVr infection at the ages of 8 and 9 contained ACVr HSV-1 with the same mutation in the TK gene. These results indicate that, although TK activity is required for reactivation of TK+/ACVs HSV-1 from latency and TK-/ACVr HSV-1 is unable to reactivate from latency, the TK-/ACVr HSV-1 strain isolated herein reactivated in this patient, possibly by using the TK activity induced by the latently co-infected TK+/ACVs HSV-1.