Overexpression of IFI16 reduces HCMV replication by inhibiting viral early and late gene expression.

<p>A) Kinetics of Adenovirus-mediated IFI16 overexpression. HELFs were infected with AdV IFI16, AdV LacZ (MOI of 200 PFU/cell), or mock-infected. At the indicated hours post infection (h), total cell extracts were prepared and subjected to Western blot analysis using anti-IFI16 polyclonal Ab. β-actin served as the internal control. B) HELFs were infected with AdV IFI16, AdV LacZ (MOI of 200 PFU/cell), or left untreated. After 24 hours, cells were infected with HCMV at an MOI of 0.1 (left panel) or 1 (right panel) PFU/cell. Cell-free supernatants were harvested on the indicated days post infection and the amounts of HCMV were determined by standard plaque assay. The data shown are the average of three experiments ± SD.