2E) but were much more prevalent in the p22-phox area in the nos2−/− tissues (Fig. 2F). The CD4+
T cells were significantly increased in the sections from nos2−/− livers with an average of 321±100 CD4+ cells per section versus an average of 93±29 cells per section in the WT (p = 0.0046 by Student’s t-test). These data demonstrate that while Nos2 is not as widely expressed as p22-phox, it severely affects the ability of CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocytes to accumulate within the mycobacterial granuloma. Mycobacterium avium infected WT mice undergo a profound IFN-γ-dependent depletion of lymphocytes; however, the impact of Nos2 in this model is not to substantially deplete T cells but to reduce the level of the IFN-γ response [6, 34]. Figure 2 suggests that T cells are specifically excluded from the phagocytic areas in M. avium infected WT mice in a nitric oxide-dependent Kinase Inhibitor Library in vitro manner. To determine whether the histological results in the WT lesions represented the depletion of all or a specific subset of lymphocytes from the affected organ, we compared the CD4+ T cells within infected organs by flow cytometry. We found only a modest effect of nos2 deficiency on the total frequency and number selleck monoclonal antibody of either live lymphocytes or CD4+ T cells in infected organs compared to WT mice (Supporting Information Fig.
1). This trend was seen before but had not reached statistical significance in previous studies [6, 34]. To determine whether the nos2 gene was adversely affecting activated effector cells, we compared the frequency (Fig. 3A) and number (Fig. 3B) of CD4+ T cells expressing the Th1-associated transcription factor, T-bet. We found that the CD4+ T-bet+ population was significantly and substantially increased in the nos2−/− mice relative to the WT mice in all infected
organs (Fig. 3). These data demonstrate that the presence of nos2 limits the accumulation of Th1-type T cells and that these 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase activated effector cells were either more susceptible to depletion or failed to develop in the presence of Nos2. To investigate whether all activated T-bet+ cells were equally affected by the presence of nos2, we stained CD4+ T cells from all infected organs for both T-bet and CD69, a molecule that is upregulated upon antigen exposure [35]. The pattern of staining is shown in Fig. 4A. We found that in all three organs, the frequency and number (Fig. 4B) of CD69hi T-bet+ CD4+ T cells were only modestly affected by the absence of nos2. In contrast, the CD69loT-bet+ CD4+ T-cell population failed to accumulate in the WT mice but did accumulate in the spleen, liver, and lung of the nos2−/− mice (Fig. 4C). These data demonstrate that the nos2 gene has the capacity to limit accumulation of CD69loT-bet+ CD4+ T cells.
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