Depletion of Neutrophils Exacerbates the Early Inflammatory Immune Response in Lungs of Mice Infected with Paracoccidioides brasiliensis

Figure 3

The anti-Ly6G mAb depletes specifically neutrophils and leads to an increased number of eosinophils during the acute stages of P. brasiliensis infection. BALB/c mice were intranasally inoculated with PBS or P. brasiliensis (Pb18) yeast cells, treated with an isotype control Ab or the anti-Ly6G specific mAb against neutrophils, and analyzed during the acute phase of P. brasiliensis infection (48 h and 96 h after challenge). Cell populations from lungs of mice were assessed by flow cytometry as described in the Materials and Methods section. Representative flow cytometry contour plots of pulmonary cells within the gated CD45+ subpopulations are shown as (a) eosinophils, (c) alveolar macrophages, (e), tissue macrophages, (g) DCs, (i) B cells, (k) CD4 T cells, (m) CD8 T, and (o) NK cells at 96 h after infection. Numbers inside the gates indicate the mean percentages of the gated subsets. Bar plots of the respective cell subpopulation per lung are shown (b, d, f, h, j, l, n, and p). Data shown represent median and IQR (-5 mice/group; representative of two independent experiments). comparing infected-untreated mice versus control mice or comparing infected-anti-Ly6G mAb-treated mice versus infected-untreated mice. PBS, control mice; PBS + Iso, control mice treated with isotype control Ab (clone: 2A3); PBS + antineutrophils, control mice treated with anti-Ly6G mAb (clone: 1A8); Pb18, infected-untreated mice; Pb18 + Iso, infected mice treated with isotype control Ab; Pb18 + antineutrophils, infected mice treated with anti-Ly6G mAb; ns: not significant.

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