Figure 4

The expression of type I IFN mRNA and MxA protein in HSV-infected cells. A) IFN-β mRNA expression. The d120 infection increased the IFN-β expression when compared to HSV-1(KOS)-infection (5 moi). R7041 infection increased the IFN-β expression when compared to HSV-1(F)-infected cells at 24h p.i. (1 moi). B) IFN-α mRNA expression. The IFN-α expression was increased at 24h p.i. in d120 (1 and 5 moi), R7041 (1 moi) and in HSV-1(F)-infected cells (5 moi) when compared to uninfected cells. The bars (A-B) represent the means of IFN-α or IFN-β mRNA normalized to β-actin ± SD from at least three independent experiments. C) Flow cytometric analysis of intracellular MxA at 24h p.i. The expression of IFN-inducible MxA protein was increased in d120-infected cells when compared to HSV-1(KOS)-infected cells (5 moi). MxA expression was increased in R7041-infected cells when compared to the rescue virus R7306 (5 moi), HSV-1(F)-infected (1 and 5 moi) or uninfected cells. The bars represent the mean level of MxA expression ± SD from three independent experiments. The significances of the differences in comparison of the deletion viruses versus parental viruses are marked as * (*:p<0.05, **:p<0.01, ***:p<0.001) and in comparison with uninfected cells as # (#:p<0.05, ##:p<0.01, ###:p<0.001).