Table 3.

Increased splenic Foxp3+ Treg after depletion of B cells in NOD.H-2h4 mice

Treatmenta	Splenocytes (×106)b	CD4+ (%)	CD4+ (×106)	CD4+Foxp3+ (%)	Treg/spleen (×106)
Isotype	46.3 ± 0.8	9.6 ± 1.1	4.5 ± 0.7	14.1 ± 0.4	0.62 ± 0.1
Anti-CD20	47.4 ± 0.2	23.2 ± 0.8	10.9 ± 0.6	12.3 ± 0.4	1.36 ± 0.1
Isotype	57.6 ± 0.2	17 ± 0.5	9.8 ± 0.6	10.9 ± 0.8	1.10 ± 0.1
Anti-CD20	52.7 ± 0.2	26.4 ± 1.9	14.1 ± 1.4	11.3 ± 0.7	1.53 ± 0.2

^aFoxp3GFP NOD.H-2h4 mice were given two injections of 125 μg anti-CD20 IgG2a or isotype control at 10 and 16 days of age (lines 1 and 2) or at 6 weeks of age (lines 3 and 4). Foxp3+ Treg in spleens were determined 12 days later, i.e. mice in lines 1 and 2 were 4 weeks old and mice in lines 3 and 4 were almost 8 weeks old. At the time of assay, isotype controls in line 1 had 60.8 ± 1.2% CD19+ B cells compared with 10.5 ± 1.5 in anti-CD20-treated mice and mice in line 3 had 59.4 ± 0.9% CD19+ B cells compared with 18.4 ± 3.1 in age-matched anti-CD20-treated mice (line 4).

^bMean ± SEM of six to seven mice per group. P < 0.01 for anti-CD20-treated compared with control mice in lines 1 and 2 and P > 0.05 for anti-CD20 compared with controls in lines 3 and 4.