BioProject

The “Spanish influenza” of 1918 claimed an unprecedented number of lives, yet the determinants of virulence for this virus are still not fully understood. More...

The “Spanish influenza” of 1918 claimed an unprecedented number of lives, yet the determinants of virulence for this virus are still not fully understood. Here, we used functional genomics and an in vitro human lung epithelial cell infection model to define the global host transcriptional response to the eight-gene 1918 virus. To better understand the role of the 1918 virus NS1 gene, we evaluated the host response to A/Texas/36/91 (a seasonal isolate of human influenza virus) and a reassortant of A/Texas/36/91 containing the 1918 NS1 gene. Overall design: A549 cells were infected at a MOI=2 with either A/Texas/36/91 (Tx/91) or A/Texas/36/91 (Tx/91) containing the NS1 gene from r1918 influenza. Virus was allowed to bind to cells for 1 h at 4°C in serum-free infection medium supplemented with trypsin (1 g/ml). Mock-infected cells were treated with allantoic fluid instead of virus. Three replicate wells were used for each infection condition at each time point. Cells were harvested for array analysis at 2, 6, and 24hr post-infection. Cells from three individual cultures were pooled for each condition for microarray. Less...