Figure 1

Adult and neonatal mice displayed differential body weight patterns during viral infection, but had a similar viral load in the lung. a) 6-8 week old C57BL/6 adult mice (n = 21) were inoculated intranasally with 500 pfu/g body weight SeV in sterile PBS (black squares). The control group was inoculated with an equivalent amount of UV inactivated SeV (white squares). b) Neonatal C57BL/6 mice (n = 31) were infected on postnatal day 2 with 500 pfu/g body weight SeV (black squares) or with UV-SeV (white squares). c) Viral plaque assay of whole lung homogenates was performed, and pfu/ml was normalized to weight of the lung tissue (g). d) Real-time PCR for SeV was performed on whole lung RNA. SeV expression was normalized to GAPDH and percent expression was calculated by the 2(-Delta Delta C(T)) method. Adults (white bars) and neonates (black bars). All values represent means ± SD; SD of adult SeV group was ≤ 1.24. SD of neonatal groups was ≤ 1.10. *s = 0.007, **p = 0.030