Figure 3. Elevated Spt-T_FH cell numbers concomitant with augmented Spt-GCs in B6.Sle1b female mice.

(A) Flow cytometric analysis of splenocytes obtained from sex matched, 6–9 month old B6 and B6.Sle1b mice for the percentages of Spt-T_FH cells. (B) The percentage of T_FH cells from 5–6 week old SRBC-immunized B6 and B6.Sle1b mice were also analyzed 12 days post-immunization. (A and B) T_FH cells are defined as CD4⁺CXCR5^hiPD-1^hi and are highlighted by the rectangular gates. The flow cytometry plots on the left are representative images from each group while the scatter plots on the right showing the range of the T_FH cell percentages. The blue dots represent male mice and the red dots represent female mice in (B). Each circle represents an individual mouse and horizontal bars represent the mean values. Statistical analysis was performed as described in Materials and Methods. (C) Spleen sections obtained from aged 6–9 month old female B6 and B6.Sle1b mice were stained with anti-IgD (blue), anti-CD4 (red) and anti-PD-1 (green). Representative images from 5 mice of each genotype are shown where original magnification of the images was 200×.