Figure 3. Expanded NIMA-specific Treg accumulation in female offspring parallels discordant maternal cell microchimerism in gender-specific reproductive tissue.

(A) 2W1S-OVA⁺ encoding DNA levels in each tissue among NIMA-2W1S female (red circle), littermate 2W1S-NIMA male (red triangle), naive female (blue circle) and naive male (blue triangle) mice. (B) Representative plots and composite data showing I-A^b:2W1S specific CD4⁺ T cells (top), FOXP3⁺ Tregs among I-A^b:2W1S specific CD4⁺ T cells (middle), and Helios expression among Tregs with I-A^b:2W1S specificity (red line) or bulk specificity (gray shaded) among NIMA-2W1S female compared with NIMA-2W1S littermate male mice. Each point represents the result from an individual mouse at 8 weeks of age, and these data are representative of at least three separate experiments each with similar results. Bars, mean ± 95% confidence interval. * P < 0.05, ** P < 0.01