Vaccination against herpesvirus, fiction or reality?

Against Herpes simplex type 1 (HSV-1) there are commercially available vaccines which may induce protection against symptoms of primary infections, but not against establishment of latency. Effective animal vaccines have been developed against herpes simplex-like viruses, for example pseudorabies vaccine for pigs, and an experimental vaccine can protect cattle against infection with infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) virus. There are also commercially available effective live vaccines against Marek's disease virus which belongs to the lymphoproliferative group of herpesviruses and causes lymphoma in chicken. An experimental immunostimulating complex (iscom) vaccine against Equine herpesvirus 2, an equine cytomegalovirus, has been tested in horse and protective immunity was induced. In man vaccines against Cytomegalovirus are used in immunosuppressed patients. Several laboratory animal models have been created for HSV-1 and HSV-2 mostly using mice but also guinea pigs. In these models many different HSV-1 or HSV-2 vaccines have been tested and induced protective immunity. The antigens in the vaccines have been envelope proteins extracted from native virus or envelope glycoproteins gB or gD in single or combined use. Glycoprotein C seems to be a less interesting as antigen for a HSV-1 vaccine. The cottontop tamarin monkey has been studied as a model for Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) induced lymphoma. An iscom vaccine containing the envelop protein gp340 of EBV induced full protection in the cottontop tamarins against a challenge infection. The iscom vaccine concept is discussed and the formation of an iscom particle with "tailor made" antigens and immunomodulators is presented.