Susceptibility of Human and Murine Dermal Fibroblasts to Herpes Simplex Virus 1 in the Absence and Presence of Extracellular Matrix

Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) invades its human host via the skin and mucosa and initiates infection in the epithelium. While human and murine epidermis are highly susceptible to HSV-1, we recently observed rare infected cells in the human dermis and only minor infection efficiency in murine dermis upon ex vivo infection. Here, we investigated why cells in the dermis are so inefficiently infected and explored potential differences between murine and human dermal fibroblasts. In principle, primary fibroblasts are highly susceptible to HSV-1; however, we found a delayed infection onset in human compared to murine cells. Intriguingly, only a minor delayed onset of infection was evident in collagen-embedded compared to unembedded human fibro-blasts, although expression of the receptor nectin-1 dropped after collagen embedding. This finding is in contrast to previous observations with murine fibroblasts where collagen embedding delayed infection. The application of latex beads revealed limited penetration in the dermis, which was more pronounced in the human than in the murine dermis, supporting the species-specific differences already observed for HSV-1 invasion. Our results suggest that the distinct organization of human and murine dermis contributes to the presence and accessibility of the HSV-1 receptors as well as to the variable barrier function of the extracellular matrix. These contributions, in turn, give rise to inefficient viral access to cells in the dermis while dermal fibroblasts in culture are well infected. IMPORTANCE Dermal fibroblasts are exposed to HSV-1 upon invasion in skin during in vivo infection. Thus, fibroblasts represent a widely used experimental tool to understand virus-host cell interactions and are highly susceptible in culture. The spectrum of fibro-blasts' characteristics in their in vivo environment, however, clearly differs from the observations under cell culture conditions, implying putative variations in virus-cell interactions. This becomes evident when ex vivo infection studies in murine as well as human dermis revealed the rather inefficient penetration of HSV-1 in the tissue and uptake in the dermal fibroblasts. Here, we initiated studies to explore the contributions of receptor presence and accessibility to efficient infection of dermal fibroblasts. Our results strengthen the heterogeneity of murine and human dermis and imply that the interplay between dermal barrier function and receptor presence determine how well HSV-1 penetrates the dermis.