Expression of apoptosis-related genes at different stages of BoHV-1 and 5 infection of bovine neural tissue.

Bovine alphaherpesviruses (BoHV) 1 and 5 share many genetic and structural characteristics; however, they differ in their ability to cause encephalitis. Previous research suggests that this difference might be caused by a differential modulation of apoptosis. In this study, we analyzed the mRNA expression of Bax, Bcl-2, Fas and caspases 3 and 8 in neural tissue sections of BoHV-1 and BoHV-5 experimentally-infected cattle.