Sensitivity of herpes simplex virus types 1 and 2 to three preparations of human interferon.

Ten isolates of herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 1 and nine isolates of HSV type 2 were tested against virus-induced (alpha), fibroblast (beta), and mitogen-induced (gamma) preparations of human interferon (HuIFN). HSV type 2 was slightly more sensitive and HSV type 1 somewhat less sensitive to all three preparations of HuIFN than Sindbis and vesicular stomatitis virus-both considered to be quite sensitive to HuIFN. HSV type 2 was significantly more sensitive than HSV type 1 to each of the HuIFN preparations (P less than 0.01; Mann-Whitney ranksum test). Clinical isolates did not appear to differ from laboratory strains. These results indicate that both HSV types 1 and 1 are sensitive to the three different preparations of HuIFN. HuIFN may have a role in natural recovery from and may have potential as an antriviral chemotherapeutic agent in HSV infections in humans.