FIG 10.

Inhibition of RIG-I in vivo abrogates cellular apoptosis in lumbar cord tissue. (A) Nine-day-old BALB/c mice were either treated with RIG-I-specific vivo-morpholino or negative-control vivo-morpholino (mock-morpholino) intracranially. After 24 h, pups were either injected with PBS (mock infection) or JEV at an MOI of 3 × 10⁴ PFU or CHPV at an MOI of 1 × 10⁴ PFU intraperitoneally. Lumbar cord tissue was harvested at day 7 pi for JEV and day 3 pi for CHPV, when pups displayed complete hindlimb paralysis with difficult or no movement at all. (B) Tissue lysates prepared from both mock-infected and virus-infected pups with or without specific vivo-morpholino or negative-control vivo-morpholino treatments were subjected to immunoblot analysis for studying expression of RIG-I receptor, viral proteins (NS3 for JEV and P-protein for CHPV infection), cleaved-casp-3, and cleaved-PARP, with β-actin used as a loading control. Data here are a representation of a minimum of 3 independent experiments performed.