FIG 4.

Detection of inflammatory mediators in the lung after hRSV infection. Ferrets were infected via the i.n. route with hRSV Long or A2 virus. Lung lobes were collected on day 5 after infection and assayed for mRNA for the indicated genes by real-time qPCR. Note that data from A2/Long were combined and samples were classified as virus positive or virus negative based on vRNA results described in Fig. 3. Circles represent individual lung lobes from up to 4 ferrets, and the horizontal line represents the mean value for each mediator. For each graph, qPCR data first were expressed relative to values for lobes from uninfected animals and then normalized to ATF4, HPRT, and GAPDH housekeeping genes. Values for virus-positive and virus-negative lobes from hRSV-infected animals then were expressed as fold change relative to the corresponding lobes from uninfected animals. For statistical analyses, inflammatory mediators were compared between virus-positive lobes and lobes from uninfected animals (*, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01, ***, P < 0.001; ****, P < 0.0001), between virus-negative lobes from infected animals and lobes from uninfected animals (÷, P < 0.05; ÷÷, P < 0.01; ÷÷÷, P < 0.001; ÷÷÷÷, P < 0.0001), and between virus-positive and virus-negative lobes from infected animals (±, P < 0.05; ±±, P < 0.01; ±±±, P < 0.001; ±±±, P < 0.0001). Note that the data did not show a normal distribution; therefore, ROUT could not be used to remove outliers. Instead, Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Dunn's multiple-comparison test was used.