The objective of the VIRCHILLD project is to identify age-related modifications of the bronchial epithelium physiology that account for differences in the response and susceptibility to respiratory viruses. Epidemiology and cell-based data show that respiratory virus infections differentially affect children, adults or the elderly populations. The current worldwide pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 clearly highlighted this notion with a large part of the deaths occurring in the elderly population and very few deaths amongst children. This may be linked to a decreased transmission and/or viral load with SARS-CoV-2 in children compared to adults and elderly. Less in the public eye is the observation that other major respiratory virus targeting the bronchial epithelium (BE) such as rhinovirus (RV) and adenovirus (AdV) cause important clinical feature in children and have a much lower incidence in adults and the elderly populations, which is the opposite to the situation with SARS-CoV-2. Based on this remarkable discrepancy between respiratory viruses the investigators hypothesize that intrinsic age-controlled properties of the respiratory epithelium under resting physiological conditions determine virus susceptibility and virus propagation.
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number of viral particles - Rhinovirus - Children -24
Timeframe: after 24 hours of infection
number of viral particles - Adenovirus - Children -24
Timeframe: after 24 hours of infection
number of viral particles - SARS-CoV-2 - Children-24
Timeframe: after 24 hours of infection
number of viral particles - Rhinovirus - Adults-24
Timeframe: after 24 hours of infection
number of viral particles - Adenovirus - Adults-24
Timeframe: after 24 hours of infection
number of viral particles - SARS-CoV-2 - Adults-24
Timeframe: after 24 hours of infection
number of viral particles - Rhinovirus - elderly-24
Timeframe: after 24 hours of infection
number of viral particles - Adenovirus - Elderly-24
Timeframe: after 24 hours of infection
number of viral particles - SARS-CoV-2 - Elderly-24
Timeframe: after 24 hours of infection