Transcriptional analysis of ocular tissue from MCMV infected neonatal mice treated with CXCR3 blocking antibody

Congenital CMV is the leading cause of congenital infections leading to several different neurological complications including ocular pathology. MCMV infeciton of newborn BALB/c mice is a known mouse model to study human infection. Here we evaluated transcriptional changes in the eye caused by blocking CXCR3 during MCMV infection. Balb/c mice were infected with MCMV or injected with PBS (controls) less than 24hrs after birth. Mice infected with MCMV were treated with anti CXCR3 blocking antibody or an irrelavant control antiboy at post natal day 0, 5 and 10. Whole eyes were collected from 5 mice per group at post natal day 15 . The retina and RPE/choroid were seperated from the rest of the ocular tissue for RNA extraction.