Figure 4. The higher susceptibility of β cells to virus-induced cell death, as compared to α cells, is not due to higher expression of virus receptors.

FACS-purified rat α and β cells (>90% purity) were infected with CVB5 (M.O.I. 5, 50 or 100 for α cells; M.O.I. 5 for β cells) (A), CVB4 (M.O.I. 5) (B), or CVB5 (M.O.I. 5) (C and D) for 36 hr. (A and B) Apoptosis was evaluated by staining with the nuclear dies Hoechst 33342 and PI. Coxsackievirus and adenovirus receptor (CAR) (C) and DAF (D) mRNA expression were assayed by RT-PCR and normalized by the housekeeping gene GAPDH. Results are from 4–8 experiments, plotted as box plots indicating lower quartile, median, and higher quartile, with whiskers representing the range of the remaining data points; *p < 0.05 and ***p < 0.001 CVB5 or CVB4 vs mock infection; #p < 0.05 and ###p < 0.001 as indicated by bars; ANOVA followed by Student's t-test with Bonferroni correction. DAF, decay accelerating factor.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06990.016

Figure 4—figure supplement 1. CAR protein expression in pancreatic rat β and α cells.

FACS-purified β and α cells (>90% purity for both cell types) were collected after 3 days in culture. Basal expression of CAR protein level was assayed by Western blot (2 out of 4 similar blots are shown) (A); Densitometry quantification of 4 independent samples of each cell type is shown in (B). Student's t-test with Bonferroni correction.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06990.017