Figure 5. Suppression of Innate Immune Responses in Sterne-Infected A/J Mice.

A/J mice were orally gavaged with 10⁹ spores of the Sterne strain of B. anthracis and innate immune responses analyzed at various time points. A. DCs isolated from the colons of Sterne-infected A/J mice were analyzed by flow cytometry for the production of the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, TNF-α, and IL-6. Representative plots indicate cytokine production of uninfected and day 3 infected mice. Corresponding isotype controls were utilized for gating of intracellular cytokines. B. Gene expression profile of the distal colon of Sterne-infected A/J mice. Data represent observations from four independent experiments and are shown as mean +/− SEM. *P<0.05, **P<0.01, ***P<0.001 compared with PBS.