FIG 3.

IL-10 impairs bacterial clearance during Ehrlichia muris infection in mice. Shown are representative bacterial loads in the blood, liver, and lungs of E. muris-infected WT and IL-10^−/− mice on day 9 (A), day 35 (B), and day 90 (C) postinfection. The bacterial loads in organs and blood were expressed as the number of ehrlichiae (the number of copies of E. muris dsb gene) present per 100 ng of total DNA. Data are the means for five mice per group and are representative of three independent experiments. Error bars represent the standard deviations. *, P = 0.01 to 0.05; **, P = 0.001 to 0.01; ***, P < 0.001.