Abstract P085: Sex Differences In Cardiovascular Measurements And Inflammatory Markers At Peak Influenza Infection In Mice

For better infectious disease surveillance, there is a growing interest in the detection of subtle changes in cardiovascular physiology in response to viral infection. This is not only important for earlier diagnosis and better prognosis of symptomatic carriers, but also useful to diagnose asymptomatic carriers of the virus. Previous studies and literature provide strong evidence of an association between inflammatory biomarker levels and changes in both blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR). Thus, the identification of novel biomarkers during an inflammatory event could significantly improve predictions for cardiovascular events. We saw changes in cardiovascular physiology can be induced and detected in A/Puerto Rico/8/34 (PR8) influenza infections in female and male C57B6/j mice. Using PA-C10 implanted radio telemeter devices, we were able to track changes in BP, heart rate HR, and activity. Infected females showed reduction in normal physiology for approximately 10 days during infection including loss of diurnal rhythm and reduced activity starting at about 3 dpi for HR and 4 dpi for activity and BP; this continued until about 13 dpi. Males on the other hand had less reduction in physiological measurements for a shorter period compared to females with a reduction starting at 5 dpi for activity, 6 dpi for BP, and 7 dpi for HR until about 12 dpi, 10 dpi, and 9 dpi, respectively. Lastly, we found females and males had different patterns of inflammatory maker expression in lungs at peak infection by analyzing bulk RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data for lungs and Bio-plex cytokine assay for blood collected from influenza infected (n=6) and naïve (n=6) C57B6/j female and male mice at 7 dpi.