Figure 2.

Viral replication is not different in the lungs of Balb/c and TLR-9^-/- mice. Balb/c or TLR-9^-/- mice were injected with saline or bleomycin intratracheally on day 0. On day 14, mice received 5 × 10⁴ PFU gamma herpesvirus 68 (γHV68) intranasally. On day 21, lungs were harvested, and total RNA was prepared and analyzed for expression of (A) the viral envelope glycoprotein gene (gB) or (B) viral DNA polymerase. A single mouse in the Balb/c group not treated with bleomycin was normalized to 1, and all other mice were plotted relative to this control (n = 5 mice/group, representative of two experiments). The ΔC_T for each group are as follows: For the gB gene: Balb 4.9 ± 0.5, TLR-9^-/- 5.7 ± 0.5, Balb plus bleomycin 3.07 ± 0.6, TLR-9^-/- plus bleomycin 2.8 ± 0.7. For the DNA polymerase gene: Balb 4.5 ± 0.6, TLR-9^-/- 5.4 ± 0.4, Balb plus bleomycin 3.3 ± 0.6, TLR-9^-/- plus bleomycin 2.8 ± 0.8.