Figure 6. Reduction of IgE, inflammation and T_H2 cytokines in α-IL-6R antibody treated asthmatic T-bet^(−/−) mice.

(a) Experimental design of a murine asthma model and the α-IL-6R antibody therapy.Mice received 100 μg OVA/Alum intraperitoneally (i.p.) and 2 mg/ml OVA intranasally (i.n.). Some of the mice also received 75 μg of α-IL-6R antibody or IgG. (b) Decreased pathological Score of the inflammation and corresponding histological sections of the lungs stained with H&E in anti-IL-6R antibody treated mice. (c) Decreased levels of IgE in blood serum of T-bet^(−/−) mice treated with α-IL-6R antibody in vivo. One of three similar experiments are shown with three to five mice per group. (d,e) Decreased number of CD19⁺ B cells (d) and CD4⁺ T cells (e) isolated from the lungs of T-bet^(−/−) sensitized and challenged mice (n = 4–21 mice per group) and in vivo treated with anti-IL6R antibody. (f–h) ELISA of IL-4 (f), IL-5 (g) and IL-13 (h) in the supernatants of total lung cell cultures from OVA-challenged and α-IL-6R antibody treated mice. Cells were cultured for 24 h with α-CD3 and α-CD28 (n = 7–8 mice per group). Statistical significances in this figure were evaluated with a Students t test. * P ≤ 0.05, ** P ≤ 0.01, *** P ≤ 0.001. Data are mean ± s.e.m.