Fig. 3. Nasal viral RNA excretion and spread of challenge virus RNA in tissues of the respiratory tract of four vaccinated piglets sacrificed at day 4 post contact challenge (dpc) with swIAV isolate H1pdmN2 (AI03362).

Viral loads were measured by an M-specific RT-qPCR; Cq values are indicated on the Y-axis. A Upper respiratory tract; B Lower respiratory tract. Nasal swabs were obtained from all vaccinated group members at 4 dpc (n = 8); three separate lung locations were sampled per group member (i.e., a total of n = 12 per group). Error bars indicate the standard deviation of the median. Asterisks indicate highly significant differences (p < 0.01) of indicated group from Mock group (Supplementary Table 2; Kruskal–Wallis with Dunn–Bonferoni correction).