Dietary Vitamin D Increases Percentages and Function of Regulatory T Cells in the Skin-Draining Lymph Nodes and Suppresses Dermal Inflammation

Figure 1

Dietary vitamin D suppressed the biphasic ear swelling response induced by the hapten DNFB. Female offspring born to vitamin D₃- (vitD-) replete (+) or vitamin D₃-deficient (−) BALB/c mothers were maintained on vitamin D₃-replete or vitamin D₃-deficient diets (resp.). (a) Serum 25(OH)D₃ levels of female offspring at 8 weeks of age (mean ± SEM for ≥5 mice per group). The broken line indicates the level of detection for 25(OH)D₃ (7 pg/mL). In (b), the ear pinnae of mice were sensitized with 0.2, 0.1, or 0.05% DNFB and the ear swelling response was measured at the second peak of the biphasic response (144 h). In (c), the ear pinnae of mice were sensitized with 0.1% DNFB and the resulting biphasic ear swelling response was measured over 305 h. Data are shown as mean ± SEM in (b) and (c) for 8–12 ear pinnae of 4–6 mice per treatment (). In (b), data are from a single experiment and in (c) they are representative of 2 experiments.

(a)

(b)

(c)