At 48 hours post-infection, however, a relative suppression of interferon gene sets and anti-viral effector gene sets occurred in the IFNε-treated groups, compared to buffer-treated cultures, particularly with the prophylactic treatment (Figs 8D, 8E and S9), which can be attributed to the reduced viral load at this time-point due to the action of IFNε (Fig 8A and 8B). Here, IFNE is linked to infection.