Figure 5: MCMV^S shows efficacy against the subclinical inflammation progression of Omicron BA.1.

(A) Heat maps of differently expressed genes in response to vaccination involved in the response to IFNy, type 1 IFN response and related to IFN signaling (44). Differentially expressed genes of mice infected with the Delta (left) or Omicron variant (right) of SARS-CoV-2 and vaccinated with the MCMV^WT or S-modified MCMV vaccine was performed after bulk RNA sequencing of the lung tissue. Columns represent different animal samples and rows, genes. Shown are z-scores of DESeq2-normalized data and color scale ranges from red (10 % upper quantile) to blue (10 % lower quantile), showing up- or downregulation in expression of the selected genes, respectively. (B) Spider plot of differentially expressed cytokines between the 2 vaccine strategies. Values are DESeq2-normalized data in a log10 scale represented for each gene analyzed. (C) Heat map of differentially expressed genes involved in T cell activation and proliferation (45). Shown are z-scores of DESeq2-normalized data and color scale ranges from red (10 % upper quantile) to blue (10 % lower quantile), showing up- or downregulation in expression of the selected genes, respectively. N = 8–11 animals per group. (D) Cell-type deconvolution of bulk RNA-Sequencing performed with GEDIT for cell type prediction based on blood reference matrix provided by the program. Shown are fractions of the cell type selected of the total count.