Fig. 1. NiV-B induces oxidative stress in SAEC and modifies antioxidant gene expression. (a, b) (F2)-8-isoprostane quantification in SAEC culture supernatants (a) and GSH/GSSG ratio assessment in SAECs (b) were performed as described in Methods. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, Student's t-test. (c) qPCR analysis of SOD2, SOD3, catalase, GST-α4 and transcription factor Nrf2 gene expression in NiV-B-infected SAECs compared with non-infected SAECs. The horizontal dashed line represents the threshold at which there was no gene expression change. Anything above or below this threshold indicates upregulation or downregulation, respectively, of a particular gene in infected cells compared with control cells. All results are expressed as the mean ± sd of three biological samples. **P < 0.01, Student's t-test.
