Figure 7: Reduction of RSV infection in the lungs of mice following DCNP, DR-FM2G DNA + protein boost, or naked DR-FM2G DNA immunizations. Two groups of mice with 10 BALB/c female mice per group were immunized on days 1, 15, and 29 with 50 µg of DR-FM2G DNA intramuscularly (i.m.) and with DCNP intranasally (i.n.). Another group of mice was immunized with DR-FM2G DNA (i.m.) on day 1 followed by rFM2G protein boost (i.n.) on days 15, and 29. Two weeks after the last immunization, the mice were challenged with 105 pfu of RSV by the i.n. route. A group of 10 naïve mice were immunized i.n. with PBS and challenged with RSV as a control. Five days after the challenge, lungs were harvested and RSV titers were determined as described in Section 2. Results are presented as an average of data from three groups in triplicate; error bars represent standard deviation. * Significantly different (P < 0.01) from PBS group; **, significantly different (P < 0.01) from PBS and DNA groups. P values were calculated by the Student’s t-test.