Caracterización de los factores implicados en la resistencia/sensibilidad a la infección del virus influenza en modelos murinos Mx-negativos

DBA/2J mice and C57BL/6J are two extremes in terms of susceptibility to influenza A virus among Mxnegative mouse strains. Several research teams focused on the factors explaining this difference, mainly by genetic approaches using Recombinant Inbred Lines between those two strains. Several candidate-genes have been proposed, but it was not possible to determine their importance. We chose a phenotypic approach, by dissecting each stage of influenza A infection virus in mice of each line, aiming at identifying critical differences between C57BL/6J and DBA/2J. Preliminary observations suggest that either the viral infection of the airway
epithelium of DBA/2J is more productive, either alveolar macrophages from C57BL/6J are more efficient in viral particles phagocytosis, or a combination of these two mechanisms. We isolated and cultured tracheal cells, pneumocytes and alveolar macrophages from both strains of mice to determine the permissiveness of the cells of the respiratory tree, quantify the specific receptors of influenza A virus and to compare the alveolar macrophage phagocytic abilities. We have demonstrated a greater presence of α2,3 receptors on alveolar macrophages and tracheal cells of DBA/2J and a higher in vitro viral amplification on DBA/2J respiratory cells.