Moreover, experiments that assessed the growth of the wild type HSV-1 and the ICP0 null- mutant in normal immortalized (human embryonic lung fibroblasts; HEL) and cancer cells (epithelial HEp-2) depleted of STING, demonstrated that although STING was detrimental to both viruses in the normal cells, it was required for optimum replication for both viruses in the cancer cells [102]. Here, STING1 is linked to cancer.