Effects of IL-7 on memory CD8⁺ T cell homeostasis are influenced by the timing of therapy in mice
J. Clin. Invest. Som G. Nanjappa, et al. 118:1027 doi:10.1172/JCI32020 [Go to this article.]

Figure 2
IL-7 treatment during the contraction phase attenuates clonal downsizing of antigen-specific CD8 T cells. C57BL/6 mice were infected with LCMV and treated daily with IL-7 or PBS between days 7 and 14 after infection. On day 15 after infection, CD8 T cells in the spleen specific to the indicated LCMV epitopes (NP396, GP33, and GP276) were quantitated by intracellular staining for IFN-γ. Following staining, cells were analyzed by flow cytometry to determine the percentages of CD8 T cells and epitope-specific IFN-γ–producing CD8 T cells in spleens of PBS- and IL-7–treated mice. (A) Total number of epitope-specific IFN-γ–producing CD8 T cells in the spleens of PBS- and IL-7–treated mice. (B) Percentages of CD8 T cells/spleen or percentages of epitope-specific CD8 T cells among total CD8 T cells in the spleens of IL-7– and PBS-treated mice. Note that each symbol in A and B represents data from the analysis of individual mice.