Figure 8. pBTLA treatment does not affect virus titers in tear film. Tear film virus titers were compared in the different mice groups following HSV-1 infection. Mice treated with pBTLA and pcDNA3.1 received 100 μg of the respective plasmid on days, −7, 0, 7 relative to HSV-1 corneal inoculation, and the PBS group received 100 µl PBS intraperitoneally. On days 1, 3, and 5, swabs of the corneal surface were collected and transferred to serum-free DMEM, and viral titers were determined by a plaque assay performed on VERO cells as described in methods. The virus titers was calculated as log₁₀PFU/ml. Results are expressed as means±SD for individual eye swabs (n=6). No statistically significant differences were observed among the different groups (p>0.05).