Figure 1.

Analysis of CD4 T cells during pregnancy in normal mice. C57BL/6 females were either left naive or mated with same-strain males and euthanized on various days of pregnancy to harvest, analyse and enumerate CD4⁺ T cells. (a) Example of flow cytometric analysis. Pink quadrant: CD25⁺ CD44^low. Blue quadrant: CD44 intermediate CD25⁺. Yellow quadrant: CD44^high CD25⁻. (b) Comparison of spleen and uterine draining node CD4⁺ T cells. Upper panels: spleen. Lower panels: uterine draining nodes. y-Axis: percentage of CD4⁺ T cell receptor β (TCR-β)⁺ cells; x-axis: gestational age where ‘um’ denotes unmated mice. Pink bars: percentage of cells falling in pink quadrant by flow cytometry. Blue bars: percentage of cells falling in the blue quadrant. Yellow bars: percentage of cells falling in the yellow quadrant. Each bar represents the mean (± standard error of the mean) of at least five mice. Analysis of the data was performed by Kruskal–Wallis test followed by Dunn's multiple comparisons test. Asterisk: P < 0·05. (c) Enumeration of cells in the spleen. y-Axis: number of cells; x-axis: gestational age; ‘um’ denotes unmated mice. Each symbol represents one mouse. Left: CD4⁺ TCR-β⁺ cells. Right: CD4⁺ TCR⁺ CD44^high CD25⁻ cells. Analysis of the data was performed by Kruskal–Wallis test followed by Dunn's multiple comparisons test. Asterisk: P < 0·05.