Fig. 4.

Proinflammatory cytokine expression in the presence of SARS-CoV PLpro or MERS-CoV PLpro. HEK293T cells were transfected with plasmids expressing MDA5 and wild type (WT) or catalytic mutants (CA) of MERS-CoV PLpro or SARS-CoV PLpro. At 18 h post-tranfection, cells were lysed and mRNA levels of CCL5, IFNβ and CXCL10 were determined using qRT-PCR. Data represents fold increase of mRNA levels compared to unstimulated cells (2^−ΔΔCt). The figure shows the results from representative experiments performed in triplicates and are shown as means, error bars represent SEM. Experiments were performed in duplicate. ^⁎p<0.0005, ^⁎⁎p<0.001, and ^⁎⁎⁎p<0.01.