Dexamethasone 21 phosphate disodium salt dex

CpG (50 or 100 μg per mouse, ODN1826, Integrated DNA Technologies) and/or Poly(I:C) (50 or 200 μg per mouse, Sigma-Aldrich) were administered i.p. to naive mice on day 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8. Analysis was on day 9. A single shot of cidofovir (50mg/kg body weight, kindly provided by Gilead Sciences) was injected i.p. either at 2 hours or at 2 days p.i. with MCMV to limit viral replication. A control group of naive mice was identically treated with cidofovir to rule out drug-specific effects. Dexamethasone 21-phosphate disodium salt (DEX, Sigma-Aldrich) was injected i.p., daily, starting on day 2 p.i. with MCMV, in a dose-response set-up, comparing 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 mg/kg body weight. As these different concentrations did not result in clinical or laboratory differences, the data were combined in one DEX-treated experimental group. All molecules were diluted to the required concentration in sterile PBS. Control MCMV-infected mice were injected daily with an equal volume of PBS. All experiments were performed using a randomized design to avoid cage effects.

PEDOT-based coatings were fabricated through the process of electrochemical polymerization in a three electrode setup comprising Pt-coated Thermanox coverslip (Electron Microscopy Sciences, Hatfield, PA, USA) as a working electrode, Ag/AgCl (3 M KCl) (EDAQ, Sydney, Australia) as a reference electrode and a Pt-coated titanium rod (EDAQ, Sydney, Australia) as an auxiliary electrode, with the use of a PARSTAT 2273 potentiostat (Ametek, Berwyn, PA, USA). A cyclic voltammetric (CV) technique was used to polymerize 15 mM EDOT (Sigma Aldrich, St Louis, MO, USA) in the presence of 1× phosphate buffer solution (PBS, Sigma Aldrich, St Louis, MO, USA) and 10 mM Dexamethasone 21-phosphate disodium salt (Dex, Sigma Aldrich, St Louis, MO, USA). CV curves were collected at 100 mV/s for 20 CV cycles within the potential range from −0.8 to 1.5 V (vs. Ag/AgCl). A CV technique was also used to form a layer of gold particles on PEDOT-based coatings. CV was performed in a solution of 2 mM gold(III) chloride trihydrate (Sigma Aldrich, St Louis, MO, USA) in 1× PBS at 100 mV/s for 5 CV cycles within the potential ranging from 0.1 to −0.85 V (vs. Ag/AgCl).