Genetic factors regulating lung vasculature and immune cells functioning associate with resistance to pneumococcal infection. Mus musculus

Analysis of pulmonary gene expression in two mouse strains, resistant (BALB/c) and susceptible (CBA/Ca) to Streptococcus pneumoniae infection. Data collected at 6h post-infection and for control animals (PBS-treated). The list of differentially expressed genes was created by comparisons of infected versus PBS-treated animals and PBS-treated BALB/c versus CBA/Ca. The hypothesis tested in the present study was that pulmonary transcriptomes of both mouse strains differ during pneumococcal infection and in non-disease conditions. Results provided important information on differences in immune responses between both mouse strains. The results identified genes and pathways uniquely regulated by only one of the tested mouse strains helping to understand molecular mechanism behind resistance or susceptibility to pneumococcal infections. Overall design: Total RNA obtained from lung tissue from BALB/cOlaHsd and CBA/CaOlaHsd mouse strains (Harlan) 6 hours post intranasal infection with Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 2 strain D39 dose 5.0E06 or PBS-treated animals