Balb/c mice were immunized with either pgB-2 or pgC-2 plasmids intramuscularly (IM) or intradermally (ID). IM immunization of latently infected guinea pigs with a combined gB-2 and gC-2 plasmid vaccine significantly reduced the number of subsequent HSV-2 recurrences (Mester et al., 1999). Another study also found that antibodies produced by gC-2 immunization blocked the interaction between gC-2 and complement C3b, and passive transfer of gC-2 antibody protected complement-intact mice but not C3 knockout mice against HSV-2 challenge (Awasthi et al., 2011). Therefore, gC-2 antibody is effective, at least in part, because it prevents HSV-2 evasion from complement.
References
Awasthi et al., 2011: Awasthi S, Lubinski JM, Shaw CE, Barrett SM, Cai M, Wang F, Betts M, Kingsley S, Distefano DJ, Balliet JW, Flynn JA, Casimiro DR, Bryan JT, Friedman HM. Immunization with a vaccine combining herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) glycoprotein C (gC) and gD subunits improves the protection of dorsal root ganglia in mice and reduces the frequency of recurrent vaginal shedding of HSV-2 DNA in guinea pigs compared to immunization with gD alone. Journal of virology. 2011; 85(20); 10472-10486. [PubMed: 21813597].
Mester et al., 1999: Mester JC, Twomey TA, Tepe ET, Bernstein DI. Immunity induced by DNA immunization with herpes simplex virus type 2 glycoproteins B and C. Vaccine. 1999; 18(9-10); 875-883. [PubMed: 10580201].
envelope glycoprotein C; the Herpesviridae are non-segmented dsDNA viruses with genomes ranging from 120-230kbp; although herpes viruses vary greatly in sequence identity and homology, they all share four common elements: an envelope, a tegument which is composed of viral enzymes, a capsid of 162 capsomers, and a core composed of genomic DNA;virion envelope glycoproteins bind to cellular receptors; the nonessential glycoprotein gC interacts with cell surface proteoglycans, whereas the essential glycoprotein gD is involved in stable secondary attachment
