LAT and skin infection: For the purpose of understanding the role of the LAT locus in skin infection, all four viruses that did not have deletions in the LAT locus (17syn+, 17ΔPstR, 17REdmiR-H1/H6, and 17-37) served as controls for the LAT mutants (17ΔN/H, Δ1773, 17dmiR-H1/H6, and m2kb-S).