Maternal schistosomiasis impairs offspring Interleukin-4 production and B cell expansion
Fig 1
Maternal S. mansoni infection leads to a humoral anti-SEA response in offspring and a reduction in follicular dendritic cells.
(A) anti- Schistosoma mansoni egg antigen (SEA) specific IgG1 antibody titers in serum of naïve 4get/KN2 mice born to infected or uninfected mothers. Each point represents an individual mouse. (B) Analysis of the correlation between maternal and offspring anti-SEA specific IgG1. (C) Anti-SEA IgG1 titers in naïve KN2 homozygous and 4get/KN2 mice born to infected and uninfected mothers at 35, 60, and 90 days of age. (D-E) Flow cytometry plots of plasma cells (IgD-CD19+/-CD138+) in popliteal and hepatic lymph nodes from naïve 4get/KN2 pups born to infected and uninfected mothers. (F) Tile confocal imaging of naïve popliteal lymph nodes of 4get/KN2 mice at 28–35 days of age, scale bar: 200 μm. Sections were stained for CD21/35 (red) FDC-M2 (gray) and CD31 (blue) with the respective CD21/35 area quantification. (G) Flow cytometry analysis of FDCs (CD21/35+FDC-M2+) gated from CD45- with the total number of FDC in popliteal lymph node from pups 28–35 days of age. (H) Frequency of CD4+ GFP+ in the blood of naïve 4get/KN2 mice. (I) Flow cytometry analysis of the expression of BaffR in CD19+ B cells, memory B cells and plasma cells. Flow plots were concatenated samples, with 3–6 mice per group and representative of six independent experiments. Confocal microscopy data is representative of n >3 mice per group from two biologically independent experiments. Statistical significance was calculated by unpaired Student's t-test. Error bar denotes mean ± SEM. Correlation analysis was calculated by Pearson correlation coefficient.