Insufficiency in airway interferon activation defines clinical severity to infant RSV infection

Chin-Yi Chu; Xing Qiu; Matthew N. McCall; Lu Wang; Anthony Corbett; Jeanne Holden-Wiltse; Christopher Slaunwhite; Qian Wang; Christopher Anderson; Alex Grier; Steven R. Gill; Gloria S. Pryhuber; Ann R. Falsey; David J. Topham; Mary T. Caserta; Edward E. Walsh; Thomas J Mariani

Our studies address a critical knowledge gap in our understanding of the mechanisms involved in infant respiratory disease, in that we rarely have had the opportunity to comprehensively interrogate resident cell responses in the target organ. We applied our recently developed methods that facilitate comprehensive molecular analysis of the airways, amenable to any infant subject, whether clinically well 35 or during illness 47 . As applied here to infant subjects during the acute phase of RSV illness, our data supports the utility of this biospecimen as a reasonable surrogate for pathophysiological responses occurring in the lower airway (Fig. 1 ). In addition, they provide novel insight into disease-related responses related to the severity of clinical symptoms (Fig. 1) , the presence of co-occurring microbes (Fig. 2 ) and the timeline of clinical symptoms (Fig. 3) .