Restricted antibody diversity to major viral proteins of herpes simplex virus in individual syngeneic mice.

The antibody response to HSV-1 proteins in individual inbred mice during natural primary and secondary infection has been observed to be markedly restricted in its clonality. Despite the presence of an adequate and large potential repertoire, the resultant antipolypeptide response is directed against just a few viral peptides. With repetitive exposure to virus, the apparent expressed repertoire is enlarged to include antibody to more and more viral proteins. The subsequent antibody responses appear randomly to different proteins. gB, gC, gE, and 155-kDa proteins vary the most as inducers of antibody responses. Somatic events including variation in precursor cell frequency and immunoregulatory influences are thought to explain the observation that different individual mice respond to different viral proteins and also that each mouse will respond to different proteins upon reexposure to virus at later times.