Zoster in children with cancer: radioimmune precipitation profiles of sera before and after illness.

Sera collected from children with cancer before and for extended periods after the onset of zoster were analyzed by radioimmune precipitation techniques. The percent recovery of both [3H]fucose- and [35S]methionine-labeled varicella-zoster virus (VZV)-specific antigens increased severalfold immediately after zoster and declined slowly during convalescence; however, within two years serum panels from two patients exhibited serologic evidence of subclinical reactivation of VZV. After electrophoretic fractionation of the immunoprecipitates, the polypeptide profile after zoster closely resembled that described for high titer xenoantisera to VZV and contained at least 16 constituents ranging in molecular weight from 32 to 174,000. In contrast, sera obtained before zoster were easily distinguished because they precipitated poorly, if at all, two major VZV glycoproteins (gp62 and gp98) and several nonglycosylated polypeptides. The emergence of zoster, therefore, was associated with the appearance of previously undetectable antibodies to VZV-specific proteins.