The in vitro model of simulated HRVI in this study, with the infection of human nasal epithelial cells with RV-16 (RV-16 virus stock: 9x109 RV-16/mL in 10 mM EDTA, 1 mM Tris, HeLa origin, sucrose gradient purified) demonstrated increased IL-6 and IL-8 protein and mRNA expression in the HRVI-cell cultures compared with MOCK-infected cell cultures (Fig 2). This evidence concerns the gene CXCL8 and infection.