Fig. 6: Course of disease in dependency of prior vaccination during early RSV infection.

BALB/c mice were primed intramuscularly with an F-encoding DNA plasmid (10 µg plasmid) followed by electroporation and boosted 28 days later either intranasally (i.n.) or intramuscularly (i.m.) with rAd19a viral vector encoding for F or the influenza NP (mock) (2 ×10⁶ infectious units per vector). 38 days after second immunization, all mice were challenged with 5 ×10⁶ PFU RSV-A. The experiment started with 25 animals per group. On the time points one, three, five, eight, and 15 days post-infection 5 mice each group were analysed. a Viral loads in BALF samples were measured by qRT-PCR. Time points represent mean values with +SEM; all groups per time point n = 5. The qRT-PCR´s detection limit was 667 copies/ml BALF and is marked with a dotted line. b Tissue damage was indirectly measured by protein content in the BALF after infection. Time points represent mean values with +SEM; all groups per time point n = 5. Data were analysed by two-way ANOVA followed by Dunnett´s multiple comparison test. Statistically significant differences were indicated among naive and vaccinated groups; (o: statistically significant worse than naive; +: statistically significant better than naive).