As shown in Fig 2A, we observed a significant decrease in SMAD3 transcript levels upon infection with WT HCMV at 3 (p = 0.05) and 6 (p<0.01) days post-infection (dpi), suggesting that the decrease in total and phosphorylated protein (Fig 1C) is due, at least in part, to a decrease in transcription of SMAD3. The gene discussed is SMAD3; the disease is infection.