Figure 5. miR155 KO mice mount impaired CD8+ T cell responses in TG compared with WT mice.

Kb-gB tetramer-specific CD8 T cell responses in TG of HSV-1– ocularly infected mice were compared among age- and gender-matched HSV-1 infected WT and miR155 KO animals on day 14 pi. TGs were excised and individual TGs (n=8) from WT and miR155 KO mice were dispersed into single cell suspensions and stained for cell surface markers CD8 and Kb-gB tetramer (A) Representative numbers of tetramer specific CD8+ T cells in WT versus miR-155KO mice. To measure Kb-gB tetramer specific CD8+ T cell responses single cell suspension of TG’s were stimulated for 6 hours with HSV-1 gb peptide in the presence of brefeldin A. After incubation, the cells were stained for surface marker CD8 and cytokines IFN-γ and TNF-α by ICS and analyzed by flow cytometry. (B) Representative FACS plots, frequencies and numbers depicting IFN-γ producing CD8 T cells and (C) IFN-γ and TNF-α double producing CD8+ T cells in WT versus miR-155KO mice. The level of significance was determined by a Student t test (unpaired). Error bars represent means ± SEM (n = 3–5 mice/group). Experiments were repeated at least three times. *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.005, ***p ≤ 0.001