Fig. 7.

Knockdown of ERK1/2 or PERK increases cell viability as well as rescues cells from VEEV induced apoptosis. Primary astrocytes were transfected with siNeg, siERK1/2, or siPERK siRNAs at 100 nM. At 48 h post transfection, cells were infected with VEEV-TC83 (MOI 5) or mock-infected and at 36hpi, A and C) Percent cell viability was measured using CellTiter-Glo assay. B and D) Caspase-3/7 activity was measured using Caspase-Glo 3/7 assay. Data was normalized to siNeg-transfected and mock-infected cells. Data are expressed as the Mean ± SD (n = 3). **p-value ≤0.01, ***p-value ≤ 0.001, ****p-value ≤ 0.0001.