Prepubertal vs pubertal lung gene expression during influenza in male mice

During the 1918 influenza pandemic, children experienced substantially lower mortality than adults, a striking but poorly understood finding. Whether this was due to enhanced resistance (reduced virus load) or better tolerance (reduced impact of infection) has not been defined. We found that prepubertal mice infected with H1N1 influenza virus also showed greater survival than infected pubertal mice, despite similar virus loads.

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