Susceptibility of Human Female Primary Genital Epithelial Cells to Herpes Simplex Virus, Type-2 and the Effect of TLR3 Ligand and Sex Hormones on Infection1
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Genital epithelial cells (ECs) are the first line of defense that sexually transmitted viruses encounter. The mechanism of viral pathogenesis in these cells is not well understood. Here, we show that a primary cell culture model from human reproductive tract tissues can be used as a novel ex vivo model in examining the interaction of herpes simplex virus, type 2 (HSV-2), with female genital mucosa. Confluent, polarized primary cultures of human endometrial and cervical ECs were established and shown to be free from any significant contamination of any other cell type. Both endometrial and cervical ECs were found to be highly susceptible to HSV-2 infection. The kinetic of infection was similar to in vivo infection, with the earliest viral shedding seen at 18 h postinfection. Primary EC monolayers could be infected both apically and basolaterally, but preferential viral shedding was seen on the apical side of cells. Following treatment of the monolayers with poly (I:C), an innate immune activator that acts via TLR3, viral shedding was reduced significantly, comparable to levels seen when an antiviral formulation, acyclovir, was used. Treatment of epithelial and stromal co-cultures with estradiol increased HSV-2 infection in endometrial ECs, but viral shedding decreased following treatment with progesterone. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that examines the interaction of primary human female genital ECs with HSV-2, using an ex vivo culture model. The results provide valuable information regarding the susceptibility of women's genital ECs to HSV-2 and the ability of innate immunity and hormones to modify this susceptibility.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".