Copyright: © 2013 Cheng SB. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a neurotropic double-stranded DNA virus which includes the HSV-1 and HSV-2 subtypes. HSV is composed of an inner DNA core, a capsid (e.g. VP22), the tegument, and an outer envelope, which is a lipid membrane containing glycoproteins. HSV1 infects 60-80% of people worldwide and causes infectious corneal blindness, the common cold sore and potentially fatal encephalitis [1,2]. HSV is one of the leading infectious viral pathogens found in immunocompromised hosts, such as transplant recipients [3]. HSV induces tissue damage including cell infiltration, perivascular inflammation and syncytial formation [3]. HSV initially infects the epithelial cells and then enters the sensory nerve terminals. During its life cycle in the sensory nervous system, HSV travels by retrograde transport to the neuronal cell bodies in the trigeminal ganglia, and then either enters latency or replicates. Replicated or reactivated HSV travels by anterograde transport out of the cell body to the central nervous system in addition to the peripheral mucosal membrane.