Figure 6. The Mus musculus domesticus Gut Microbiome Affects the Cytokine Profile of Mice after Lethal IAV Infection.

Female mice were inoculated with 400 TCID₅₀ and male mice with 600 TCID₅₀ of PR8. Cytokines, chemokines and growth factors were quantified in lung tissue at day 4 post IAV infection using a multiplex Luminex assay. (A) Univariate analysis of the 15 of 21 cytokines that were differentially expressed in WildR as compared to LabR and Lab. Mean and SEM are presented. (B) Correlation matrix (using Spearman’s rank-correlation) between measurements of all 21 cytokines, hierarchically clustered and rendered as a heatmap. Lab, n=29; LabR, n=30; WildR, n=30. *P<0.05, **P<0.01, ****P<0.0001. Significance was determined using parametric One-Way ANOVA with Tukey multiple comparison test with 95% confidence interval (Gaussian model), or Kruskal-Wallis with Dunn’s multiple comparison test. All data shown are from three independent experiments using both female (X) and male (O) mice.