Fig. 4: Protection against challenge with contemporary and historical H3 viruses in mice.
BALB/c mice were vaccinated with 1010 vp of HAdV-5-Epigraph, the FluZone vaccine, or a mock PBS vaccine. Mice were challenged intranasally three weeks after immunization with 103.6–3.8 TCID50 of contemporary strains Alaska/2015 (a), Ohio/2012 (b), or Brisbane/2007 (c) and sacrificed 3 days post challenge to examine lung viral titers (n = 5; one-way ANOVA with Tukey multiple comparisons). For lethal challenge with historical H3 strains, BALB/c mice (n = 10) were challenged intranasally 3 weeks post immunization with 10 MLD50 of Texas/1977 (d–f) or Aichi/1968 (g–i). Mice were monitored for weight loss over 14 days and animals that showed 25% weight loss were humanely euthanized (n = 5; Kaplan–Meier log-rank test compared to the sham vaccinated group). Weight loss data are censored after the first animal death in a group to prevent survival bias. Three days post infection, five mice per group were sacrificed to examine lung viral titers by TCID50 (e, h) and qPCR (f, i) (n = 5; one-way ANOVA with Tukey multiple comparison). Data are presented as the mean with standard error (SEM).
