Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Immunol. 2012 Aug 24;189(7):3600–3608. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1201525

Figure 4.

Figure 4

Glucocorticoids are involved in the induction of thymus atrophy during infection with M. avium strain 25291.

A. Representative kinetics of serum corticosterone levels in WT mice infected with M. avium 25291 or 2447 as compared to non-infected (Ninf) mice or of IFNγ-KO mice infected with strain 25291 versus non-infected (Ninf). B. Number of thymocytes from non-infected (Ninf) mice and mice infected for 75 days with M. avium 25291 and treated with either vehicle or RU486 (RU). Data represent the mean and standard deviation of values obtained from six to eight mice in each group analyzed individually and represents two independent experiments. Statistically significant differences between infected and non-infected mice are labeled as *p <0.05, **p <0.01 ***p <0.001. C, D. Decrease of total (C) and DP (D) thymocytes after dexamethasone treatment of non-infected (Ninf) or M. avium 25291-infected animals of either WT or IFNγ-KO strains. Data represent the ratio between the cell numbers in dexamethasone-treated animals and the cell numbers in PBS-treated animals, i.e. the fraction of cells remaining after dexamethasone treatment.