Latency of the human herpesviruses.

The herpesviruses are ubiquitous pathogens that establish latent infections and can reactivate to produce recurrent disease. The fact that clinical recurrences are infrequent in most healthy individuals indicates that potent regulatory mechanisms must exist to ensure viral latency. Rapid progress is being made toward understanding the pathogenesis of latency and reactivation and is the subject of this review.