History of recurrent mucocutaneous herpes correlates with relatively low interferon production by herpes simplex virus-exposed cultured monocytes.

Monocytes separated from blood specimens of healthy voluntary blood donors were infected with herpes simplex virus (HSV) 1 or 2. The amount of interferon produced by the HSV-exposed monocytes was found to be donor-specific and was similar whether tested with HSV 1 or HSV 2. The interferon levels in repeated blood specimens from a given donor were relatively stable within an observation period of a few months. The survey was expanded by testing 27 persons with history of recurrent herpes disease and 16 control persons without such history. HSV-exposed monocytes of the controls produced significantly higher amounts of interferon than those of the patients with lesions of recurrent herpes (mean levels 145 and 58 IU/ml, respectively; P less than 0.05). A correlation was also found between the antibody status of the cell donor and the capability of the monocytes to produce interferon when infected with HSV 1 or HSV 2: the interferon responses of monocytes of seronegative cell donors were significantly higher than those of cultures from donors with complement fixing antibodies against HSV (P less than 0.01).