Altered transcriptional responses in the lungs of aged mice after influenza infection

This study used transcriptomic analysis to evaluate how aging specifically affects the functional host response to influenza in the mouse lung. Adult (12-16 weeks) and aged (72-76 weeks) female BALB/c mice were infected with influenza (A/Puerto Rico/8/34 (H1N1) (A/PR8)) intranasally (instilled with 50 μl of PBS containing 50-100 pfu PR8). Lungs were processed for RNA expression analysis via Agilent microarray at various time points. Time points were 0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 days post infection. Factorial experiment. Two mouse age classes: Adult (12-16 weeks); and Aged (72-76 weeks), both tested in six timepoints (0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 days post-influenza infection). There were three replicates for each Age x timepoint combination except timepoint = 3 days. In the 3 day treatments, there were two replicates per timepoint. There were a total of 34 samples.