Establishment of a System to Quantify Wild-type Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV)-induced Cell-cell Fusion Reveals a Role of N-glycosylation of HSV-1 Envelope Glycoprotein B in Cell-cell Fusion.

Wild-type herpes simplex virus (HSV) strains infrequently mediate cell-cell fusion in cell cultures and barely induce large multinucleated cells. In this study, we established a system to quantify infrequent cell-cell fusion induced by wild-type HSV strains. The established system clarified that the HSV-1 envelope glycoprotein B and its N-glycosylation at asparagine at position 141 were required for efficient cell-cell fusion. This study provides a link between cell-cell fusion induced by wild-type HSV-1 and viral pathogenesis in vivo. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.