Fig 5. Expression of K5.Stat3C enhances MHCII^loCD80^lo mTEC survival, but not proliferation.

(A) Representative FACS histograms showing frequency of BrdU positive cells in MHCII^hi and MHCIl^lo mTEC subsets from K5.Stat3C (thick black line) and control (shaded) thymi. (B) Scatter graphs showing percentage of BrdU positive cells. (C) Representative FACS histograms showing frequency of cleaved caspase 3 (CC3) positive cells in MHCII^hi and MHCIl^lo mTEC subsets from K5.Stat3C (thick black line) and control (shaded) thymi. (D) Scatter graphs showing percentage of CC3 positive cells. (E) Quantitative RT-PCR analysis of Bcl-2 expression in MHCII^hi and MHCIl^lo mTECs. Relative expression of bcl-2 mRNA was normalized using α-tubulin mRNA and the NTg MHCIl^hi mTEC control was set at 1. Bar graph shows mean ± SEM of four independent experiments with duplicate or triplicate samples in each experiment. *P<0.05 (Student’s unpaired t-test). (F) Representative FACS histograms showing Bcl-2 expression in MHCII^hi and MHCIl^lo mTEC subsets from K5.Stat3C (thick black line) and control (shaded) thymi.