To the Editor

Herpes viruses are present as blind passengers in the majority of humans and occasionally manifest themselves as insidious foes.

When studying biological processes of herpes simplex viruses in host cells our research group enormously benefitted from a considerable number of virus mutants, that had been expertly isolated/constructed in several notable institutions. Now, we have come to the assessment, that exploiting the scientific potentials of these highly valuable tools would by far exceed our own means.

The collection consists of 49 mutants derived from HSV-1 and HSV-2 standard laboratory strains (Annex I). The affected gene functions have been identified in 28 mutants. The remaining mutants have been partially characterized physically, genetically and/or phenotypically. Forty-one of the 49 mutants have a temperature-sensitive phenotype, ideally suitable for studying dynamic processes in infected cells. They can be propagated at 33 °C, and their genetic lesions are lethal at 39 °C. The parental wild-type strains do grow at both temperatures.

While all mutants were plaque-purified we strongly recommend to regularly check for mycoplasma when preparing own stocks, as this was not regularly done for all original stocks. While the phenotypes of all strains are characterized and the majority of strains has literature reference, no full length sequences have been published or deposited, yet.

Informations on the isolation history (scientist/institution), genetic defect, and prior use in research projects may be found in the Annex I to this letter. Virus samples may be provided by our Institute under the conditions that a mutant (i) must not be renamed and (ii) its origin must be named (i.e. investigator and institution), when used in a project/publication. It is also foreseen to deposit the variants at the UK culture collection virus biobank (www.culturecollections.org.uk) for non-commercial usage.