Figure 8.

Normalization of cutaneous leishmaniasis in B cell–deficient μMT infected with IgG-opsonized promastigotes of L. major. Groups of ≥5 μMT mice were infected into ear skin with 10³ NMS- or IS-opsonized metacyclic promastigotes. (A) Lesion volumes are presented as mean ± SEM (n = 3, ^*, P ≤ 0.05, and ^***, P ≤ 0.002). (B) Parasite loads of infected ears were determined in week 6 after infection using limiting dilution assays. Each data point represents the number of organisms from one ear and bars indicate arithmetic means. One representative out of two independent experiments is shown. (C) Lesional CD11c⁺ DCs were purified using flow sorting at the indicated time points and the percentage of infected DCs was determined on cytospins (mean ± SEM, n = 2, ^*, P ≤ 0.05). (D) B cell–deficient J_HT mice were infected with 10³ metacyclic promastigotes and developing lesions monitored every week (mean ± SEM, ^*, P ≤ 0.05, and ^***, P ≤ 0.002, n ≥ 10 mice/group). (E) Groups of ≥5 C57BL/6 Fcγ^−/− mice were infected with 10³ metacyclic promastigotes. Lesion volumes were assessed for >3 mo and are presented as mean ± SEM (^*, P ≤ 0.05 and ^***, P ≤ 0.002, n = 2). Parasite loads were determined in week 4 by limiting dilution assay. One representative out of two independent experiments is shown (^*, P ≤ 0.05). The number of infected lesional DCs was determined on cytospins in week 4 (n = 2).