Figure 8.

Invalidation of autophagy in B cells reduces IgG deposits in the kidney of lupus-prone mice. Mice bearing the lpr mutation on the C57BL/6 background were crossed with Atg5^f/− CD21 cre mice (CD21 cre^lpr/lpr) and their kidneys were collected at the age of 9 months. Atg5^f/+ CD21 cre littermate mice harbouring the lpr mutation were used for comparison (littermates^lpr/lpr). Organ sections stained with anti-mouse IgG Abs before analysis on a spinning disk confocal microscope. (a) The total section was scanned and a representative image for each genotype is shown on the left. The white bars represent 500 μm. A magnification is indicated on the right to exemplify a glomerulus positive for IgG deposition, delimited by the dotted line. (b) The intensity of IgG staining was determined for each glomerulus as indicated in Materials and methods. Individual values of littermates^lpr/lpr n=5 and CD21 cre ^lpr/lpr n=4 (n=20 glomeruli per animal) for each genotype were pooled and plotted on the graph. The bars represent the mean of glomerular IgG staining intensity for each genotype. ****P<0.001 (Mann–Whitney U-test)