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A Novel Mechanism Of Enhanced Susceptibility To Bacterial Pneumonia In Influenza-Infected Hosts, Hazem Elsayed Ghoneim

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Viruses such as influenza suppress host immune function by a variety of methods. This may result in a significant morbidity through several pathways, including facilitation of secondary bacterial pneumonia from pathogens such as Streptococcus pneumoniae. Lungresident alveolar macrophages (AMs) act as the first line of innate cellular immunity against respiratory bacterial pathogens, including pneumococcus. Therefore, they represent an attractive target for study Before investigating the impact of influenza infection on resident AMs, we first characterized different subsets of lung-resident macrophages in naïve mice using a novel in vivo labeling approach in conjunction with multicolor flow cytometric analysis and confocal microscopic …