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. 2008 Oct 22;2(10):e325. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0000325

Figure 5. Presence of mycolactone in serum during M. ulcerans infection.

Figure 5

A) The dose-dependent immunosuppressive activity of mycolactone on the IL-2 production of Jurkat T cells is shown. IL-2 concentration was measured in culture supernatants of Jurkat T cells incubated with mycolactone A/B for 6 h prior to stimulation with PMA/ionomycin for 16 h. B) The effect of control mouse sera on stimulation-induced production of IL-2 by Jurkat T cells is shown, by comparison to cells incubated in the absence of serum. The graph shows that this inhibitory effect can be neutralized by heating the control mouse sera at 90°C for 10 min (HT), prior to addition onto Jurkat T cells. Controls include cells in the absence of stimulation (NS), and cells activated in the presence of sera spiked with mycolactone (400 ng/ml), then heat-treated. C) Immunosuppressive activity of sera harvested from mice infected with wild-type M. ulcerans (wtMu) or the mycolactone deficient mutant mup045Mu, as compared to sera from uninfected animals. Data are mean and SD of duplicate measurements of IL-2 production by Jurkat T cells activated in the presence of mouse sera (n = 4), and are representative of two independent experiments.