Research Paper Volume 15, Issue 23 pp 13593—13607

Figure 2. (A) Increased levels of IL-6, IL-8, and MCP-1 of infected supernatants of SAECs (n = 3) determined 8 h and 24 h p.i. compared to non-infected mock. (B) SAECs were infected with SARS-CoV-2 delta or omicron variant with an MOI of 5 for 24 h. Infected cells show clear signals for intracellular spike protein (green) and dsRNA (red). (C) SARS-CoV-2 RNA detected in cell lysates of infected SAECs after 8 h and 24 h p.i.. (D) Gene expression of senescence markers CDKN1A, CDKN2A, and LMNB1, normalized to mock cells. CDKN1A is significantly upregulated in cells infected with omicron variant compared to the delta variant. (E) Levels of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) protein IL-1β are significantly increasing in omicron-infected cells from 8 h to 24 h p.i.. (F) β-Galactosidase staining of SAECs after 24 h p.i. with SARS-CoV-2. Scalebar indicates 100 μm. P calculated by one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparisons tests (A, E) and Welch’s t-test (D), ^*p < 0.01, ^**p < 0.05, ^***p < 0.001, ^****p < 0.0001.