Experimental in vivo generation of intertypic recombinant strains of HSV in the mouse.

The primary replication of one strain of HSV was generally unaffected by the simultaneous inoculation of another strain either at the same site or at a different site within the same dermatome. Exceptions to this were the result of the generation of intertypic recombinants which were readily isolated only from sensory ganglia 5 and 6 days after inoculation with a mixture of HSV-1 and HSV-2 and from explant culture of the resultant latently infected ganglia. By restriction enzyme analysis the majority of the recombinant strains from primary infection were characterized as HSV 1; all those from latently infected ganglia were characterized as type 2.