Fig. 3

Protective effect of airway inoculation with the AAV9 vector against lethal influenza infection in mice. (A) AAV9-EGFP or AAV9-EGFP-mCXCL14 vectors were administered to BALB/c mice, and lung Cxcl14 gene expression was quantified by qPCR 2 weeks later. Naive mice were used as negative controls. The AAV9-EGFP-mCXCL14 group exhibited upregulated mCXCL14 gene expression compared to both the naive and AAV9-EGFP groups. (B) Two weeks after AAV9 vector inoculation, mice were infected with IAV. Naive mice infected with IAV served as a control. A summarized survival graph of the three groups (n = 5 per group) shows no significant difference between the groups. (C-D) Mice were infected with IAV 4 weeks after AAV9 vector administration. Cumulative follow-up results from two independent experiments (n = 10 per group) show reduced mortality (C) and attenuated weight loss (D) in mice receiving AAV9-EGFP or AAV9-EGFP-mCXCL14 vectors compared to infected naive controls. Statistical analysis was performed using the log-rank (Mantel-Cox) test for survival comparison and multiple t-test for weight change comparison. Statistical significance is indicated as follows: *p < 0.05