Fig. 5.

In vivo therapeutic effects of Breg^IL-33 on spontaneous IBD in IL-10-deficient mice. Aged IL-10^−/− mice showed significantly reduced diarrhoea (A) and absence of the typical colonic histopathological changes (B), following adoptive transfer of Breg^IL-33 (CD19⁺CD23⁻) purified from blood samples of the hIL-33-injected WT mice (Wk-2). The mice (5 per group) were injected i.v. with Breg^IL-33 (10⁶ cells per mouse) or PBS only (control), for 2 times at the age of 11-wk and 13-wk (arrows). The treated mice were then monitored for the development of diarrhoea (A), sacrificed at the age of 18-wk (7 weeks after the 1st Breg^IL-33 treatment), and the colons processed for histological and pathological examinations (B). For quantitative analysis (B, histograms), the ImageJ picture analysis software was used to count cell numbers by setting a signal strength threshold to select only dark nuclei and counting the number of selected particles (see Methods). The experiment has been repeated for two times with consistent results. Statistical analysis: p values (MHL Log rank test).