Fig 5. Gene expression analysis in the respiratory tissues of SARS-Cov-2 infected hamsters reveals significant interferon dysregulation with concomitant increases in inflammatory and immune mediators.

qRT-PCR was performed on RNA extracted from nasal turbinate and right cranial lung tissue of SARS-CoV-2 inoculated hamsters. Samples were assessed for type I interferon response-related (IFN-beta, STAT2, IRF1, IRF3, TLR3), type II interferon response-related (IFN-gamma, IRF2, STAT1, CXCL10), and innate/adaptive mediators (CD3, CD4, CD8, CD19, IL-2, TGF-beta, IL-21, IL-10, IL-4, IL-5, IL-5R, IL-13, IL-12, CD14, CCR3, PKR, CCL20, CCL22, IL-1beta, IL-6, TNF) using primers specific to hamster genes (Table 1). Fold-change was calculated via ΔΔCt against baseline (Day 0) with BACT as the housekeeping gene. At least three animals were analyzed for each timepoint.