Fig. 6

Antiviral cidofovir treatment rescues MCMV-infected IFN-γ-KO BALB/c mice from severe HLH-like disease. a Titer of infectious virus in spleen (PFU per g spleen tissue) with/without cidofovir (CDV) treatment on day 0 (d0) (left panel) or day 2 (d2) (right panel) post infection (p.i.). Plaque assay detection limit 2 PFU/organ, indicated by dotted line. b Percentage change in body weight relative to body weight at day 0 p.i.. Median with interquartile range of 5 mice per experimental group. Weight change was significantly different between infected CDV-treated and infected non-treated mice, on day 4 and 5 p.i. (**). Arrow indicates time point of CDV treatment. c Rectal body temperature (°C) on day 2 p.i.. Dotted line = 38.5°C (fever). d Absolute spleen weight (g). e-g Absolute lymphocyte, platelet and red blood cell (RBC) count in whole blood. h Percentage of hemophagocytes detected in cytospins of blood-derived WBC. i Plasma concentration of the ferritin heavy chain (ng/ml). j Plasma concentration of sCD25 (pg/ml). k Percentage of NK cells in whole blood, gated as CD122⁺CD49b⁺ cells of CD3^-PI^- cells. l Plasma concentration of ALT (IU/L). a, c-g, j-l Dots represent individual animals. h Dots represent the average of triplicate counts of 100 cells from one individual mouse. i Dots represent the average of two dilutions for one single mouse. Horizontal bars refer to median group values. i, j Dotted lines represent the lower ELISA detection limit. a, d-l Data were obtained on day 5 p.i.. ALT = alanine transaminase, CDV = cidofovir 50mg/kg injected day 0 (d0) or day 2 (d2) p.i., NI = not infected, NT = not treated with CDV, PI = propidium iodide, temp. = temperature, WBC = white blood cells. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; Mann-Whitney U test for single comparison, Kruskal-Wallis with Dunn’s post-test for multiple comparisons. Depicted data are from 1 experiment and representative of 2 independent experiments