Alveolar macrophages hyporeactivity act in the extreme susceptibility of DBA/2J to Influenza A infection.

DBA/2J and C57BL/6J represent two opposite ends in terms of sensitivity and resistance to influenza A virus between the Mx-negative mouse lines. Several research teams focused on the factors explaining this difference, mainly by genetic approaches using Recombinant Inbred Lines between those two strains. Several candidate-genes have been proposed, but it was not possible to determine their importance. To help to define the factors involved in the susceptibility of DBA/2J mice to influenza infection, we adopted a phenotypic approach to identify the critical steps of the infection process accounting for this extreme susceptibility. Overall, the data presented here support the role of a dysfunction of alveolar macrophages, to influenza infection in the higher susceptibility of DBA/2J mice to this virus.