Antibodies against varicella-zoster virus and herpes simplex virus deoxythymidine kinase in heterologous infections

Antibody responses to varicella-zoster virus (VZV) deoxythymidine kinase (dTK) and herpes simplex virus (HSV) dTK in homologous and heterologous infections were studied. Antibodies blocking the enzymatic activity of VZV-dTK appeared late after varicella and decreased more or less in parallel with the decreasing complement fixing (CF) titre. In herpes zoster, on the other hand, antibodies to VZV-dTK appeared soon after infection. Antibodies against HSV dTKs appeared long after primary infection, but they were subsequently present in all other HSV-CR positive sera. In recurrent HSV, all acute sera were already HSV-dTK antibody positive, and three of nine persons showed an increase in titer between their acute and convalescent sera.