Figure 5.
Effects of recombinant vaccinia virus infection on endogenous IL-15 expression. Nude mice were inoculated i.v. with 106 pfu of the respective recombinant vaccinia viruses, and tissues were harvested 36 h (A) and 10 days (B) after infection. Total cellular RNA was then isolated from lung (lanes 1), spleen (lanes 2), brain (lanes 3), and liver (lanes 4), and IL-15 mRNA levels were determined by RPA as described in Materials and Methods by using a riboprobe fragment specific for murine IL-15. Each sample represents tissue RNA pooled from three animals. IFN-γ represents a gene that is modulated early in vaccinial infection. The expression levels of ribosomal gene L32 serve as an internal control for RNA integrity. Data are representative of two similar experiments performed.