Stress wakes up sleeping herpes viruses – but how?

Hiding their DNA genome inside the nuclei of the infected cells, the herpes viruses establish a lifelong infection in humans. Poorly defined stress conditions are known to wake up these parasites from their latent phase and reactivate the production of new viral progeny, eventually causing cell death by lysis, the lytic phase. This process allows the virus to multiply and spread, usually through lesions of the skin, as in the case of the well known herpes simplex virus. Unlike herpes simplex, however, some other herpes viruses can cause cancer.