Introduction. Herpetic keratitis caused by the herpes simplex virus (HSV) is the most common form of ocular herpes that causes corneal blindness. Although treatments for herpes keratitis have improved in recent years. there is still considerable room for new treatments against viral infection that shows great promise. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of RNA interference on HSV Type 1 (HSV1) infection in vitro, first prophylactically then therapeutically.

Material and methods. The highly conserved glycoproteins D (gD) and E (gE) were chosen as targets for this study. Different small interfering RNA (siRNA) duplexes that target gD and gE were designed and chemically synthesized. The recombinant adenovirus type 5 was developed and used as the vehicle with which we delivered the siRNA into the Vero cells infected with the HSV1 KOS strain. Evaluation of the efficacy of siRNA-mediated inhibition was performed either before virus inoculation (prophylactically) or after virus inoculation at the first appearance of lesions (therapeutically). The expression of messenger RNA encoding gD and gE was detected using a real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). We analyzed HSV replication in Vero cells, cytotoxicity of HSV, and cell viability.

Results. When used prophylactically, the siRNA-targeting gD and gE created a more marked decrease in viral titer than when used therapeutically. The transfection of cells with recombinant adenovirus containing the siRNA expression cassette was associated with very low cytotoxicity.

Conclusions. Adenovirus-mediated siRNA-targeting gD and gE genes effectively inhibit the replication of the
HSV in Vero cells. In addition, these findings indicate that the prophylactic use of siRNA is far more effective at inhibiting HSV replication than the therapeutic use.