Enhanced in vitro Reactivation of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 from Latently Infected Guinea-pig Neural Tissues by 5-Azacytidine Stephanopoulos, Dimitrios E. and Kappes, John C. and Bernstein, David I.,, 69, 1079-1083 (1988), doi = https://doi.org/10.1099/0022-1317-69-5-1079, publicationName = Microbiology Society, issn = 0022-1317, abstract= Summary 5-Azacytidine (5-AZC) reduces cytosine methylation in DNA and has been reported to activate quiescent virus genes. Treatment of explant cultures of latently herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2)-infected guinea-pig dorsal root ganglia and spinal cords in vitro with 5-AZC significantly enhanced the rate of HSV recovery. Both the number of isolates from ganglia (P < 0.001) and the rate of recovery (P < 0.001) were significantly increased with the addition of 50 µM-5-AZC to explant cultures. Increased virus recovery appeared to be due to the induction of reactivation of latent virus, rather than an increase in replication, since 5-AZC inhibited HSV replication. These data support a role for methylation in HSV latency and reactivation., language=, type=