The response of murine primary airway epithelial cells to Influenza infection and the importance of Interferon type I signaling in this response [mAEC].

To investigate how murine airway epithelial cells respond to Influenza infection and how important interferon type I signaling is for this response, we harvested airway epithelial cells from the tracheas of wild type, interferon type I knockout(IFNaR-/-) and STAT1 knockout (STAT1-/-) mice and cultured them as previously described (Pickles et al,1998) in polarized airway epithelial cell cultures (mAECs). Triplicate mAECs from each type of mouse (wt,IFNaR-/-,STAT1-/-) were infected with 2X105 PFUs Influenza A (WSN) for 2h or mock inoculated and harvested 24h after infection. Triplicate murine polarized airway epithelial cell cultures from wild type, IFNaR-/- or STAT1-/- mice were mock treated or infected with 2x10^5 PFUs of Influenza A (WSN) for 2h and harvested 24 h post infection.