Figure 6

Azithromycin (AZM) reduces viral load in rhinovirus-infected bronchial epithelial cells.

HBECs were pre-treated with azithromycin for 24 h before infection with 1MOI RV16 and continuous throughout the experiment. Cells were harvested for gene expression analysis 24 h post infection. Gene expression levels of viral load in COPD patients (a) were measured by real-time PCR and data is presented as mean ± standard error of the mean (SEM) fold change of RV16 relative to UBC/GAPDH expression. Additionally, viral progeny in cell supernatants was measured by TCID₅₀ assay (b) and percent inhibition to RV16 was calculated. Comparison of different groups was performed by Kruskal-Wallis with Wilcoxon post testing. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 vs. RV16. Data was obtained from 5 COPD donors.