Fig 3.

Effect of depletion of NK cells, granulocytes, or pDC on NK, CTL, and neutralizing antibody responses during secondary ECTV infection in mice. Groups of 5 female B6 mice, primed with ECTV-TK^Δ 35 days previously, were left untreated (None) or depleted of granulocytes, NK cells, or pDC and challenged with ECTV-WT. Separate groups were sacrificed on day 5 to measure NK cell responses (A) and on day 8 p.c. to measure CTL responses (B). Data shown are from one of two experiments with similar results. Virus-neutralizing activity (C) was performed by the PRNT using serum samples collected before virus challenge (day −1) and at day 8 p.c. There were no significant differences in neutralizing activity between the nondepleted group and groups depleted of specific leukocyte subsets. The reciprocal dilution of serum was log transformed and normalized before using sigmoidal (four-parameter) curve fitting on GraphPad Prism to determine 50% neutralization titers (NT₅₀) and perform sum-of-squares F test comparison. There was no statistical difference in log NT₅₀ between the nondepleted group and any of the groups depleted of specific leukocyte subsets. There is a significant difference (P ≤ 0.05) between results for the prechallenged and challenged groups.