Infection of a human respiratory epithelial cell line with rhinovirus. Induction of cytokine release and modulation of susceptibility to infection by cytokine exposure.

Rhinovirus infections cause over one third of all colds and are a contributing factor to exacerbations of asthma. To gain insights into the early biochemical events that occur in infected epithelial cells, we develop, for the first time, a model in which a pure respiratory epithelial cell population can be routinely infected by rhinovirus. Viral infection was confirmed by demonstrating that viral titers of supernatants and lysates from infected...