Figure 6. IL-17R KO mice are resistant to SK.

C57BL/6 and IL-17R KO mice were infected with 1×10⁴ PFU of HSV. (A) The disease progression kinetics and SK severity was assessed on day 8, 11, 15 and 21 pi (left panel). Right panel shows the score of individual eye on day 15 pi

(B) Representative H&E stained corneal sections from WT (upper row) and IL-17R KO (lower row) mice collected on day 15 pi. The figure shows the pictures of the section taken at X 10 (left), X 20 (middle) and X 100 (right) original magnification.

(C) Representative immunofluorescence micrograph of corneas for CD4⁺ T cells (green) from WT and IL-17R KO mice on day 15 pi. The sections were counterstained with propidium iodide (red). Scale bars, 75µm. Mice were sacrificed on day 15 pi and corneas were harvested and pooled group wise for the analysis of various cell types (n = 6–8 per group). (D) Representative FACS plots for corneal infiltrating total CD4⁺ T cells. (E) Intracellular staining was conducted to quantify Th1 and Th17 cells by stimulating them with PMA/Ionomycin (top) and HSV-KOS virus (bottom). (F) The bar diagram shows the average frequencies of Th1 and Th17 cells after stimulation with PMA/ionomycin or UV inactivated HSV-KOS from two independent experiments. (G) The bar diagram is a summary for total numbers of corneal infiltrating CD4⁺ T cells, IFN-γ⁺ CD4⁺ T cells, HSV stimulated IFN- γ⁺ CD4⁺ T cells, IL-17⁺ CD4⁺ T cells, HSV-Stimulated IL-17⁺ CD4⁺ T cells in the corneas of WT and IL-17R KO mice. Data are shown as a summary of two independent experiments with 6 to 8 mice per group. Statistical levels of significance were analyzed by Student’s t test. *< 0.05; ***< 0.001. Error bars are SEM.