The Lactobacillus and herpes simplex virus type 2 infection

The presence of Lactobacillus species has been thought to be the sine qua non of healthy vaginal microbial communities in women during the reproductive age, and much evidence supported the benefits of restoring vaginal microbiomes by application of oral or vaginal probiotic formulations of Lactobacillus species might be advantageous in vastly improving women's health and disease prevention, such as bacterial vaginosis, sexually transmitted disease (STD) and possible neoplasms, including cervical intraepithelial neoplasm (CIN) or cervical caners. In March issue of the Journal of the Chinese Medical Association, Dr. Mousavi and colleagues published an article addressing the anti-viral effects of Lactobacillus crispatus against herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) in Vero (African green monkey kidney cells) and HeLa cells (human cervical cancer cell line), and the authors found that L. crispatus could efficiently inhibit the entry of HSV-2 into both cell lines, and its mechanism might be mediated by formation of L. crispatus microcolonies in the cell surface which could block HSV-2 receptors and prevent viral entry to cells in initial infection steps and entrapment of viral particles by direct interaction of L. crispatus with HSV-2 envelop. This study suggested that a physical contact between L. crispatus and HSV-2 envelop might be a promising finding, which needs further investigation to provide much evidence for the prophylactic properties of L. crispatus. This study is very interesting and worthy of discussion. First, since the authors supposed that the possible mechanism of the inhibition of HSV-2 infection to mammalian cell lines might be the formation of “barriers” between the virus and targeted cells, it is wondering why the authors used L. crispatus as agents for the current study? HSV has been previously considered as one of the possible factors inducing the development of cervical cancer for long time, although the final pathogen was proved as a causative factor–human papillomavirus (HPV). In the pathophysiology of virus infection, all are initiated from the attachment of the virus to the target cells. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that the more powerful and “tight” or “ready” attachment ability of these Lactobacillus microbiota to the target cells is one of the most important factors to compete with the attachment ability of virus to the target cells. It should be considered to evaluate the anti-HSV-2 effects of the Lactobacillus species on the target