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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jun 1.
Published in final edited form as: Microbes Infect. 2016 Mar 16;18(6):430–435. doi: 10.1016/j.micinf.2016.03.004

FIGURE 2. Statins affect antibody titers in treated mice and lovastatin elicits a TH2 type response in mice infected with B. burgdorferi.

FIGURE 2

A) Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays using individual sera from C3H/HeN mice against whole cell B. burgdorferi strain B31 clonal isolate MSK5 with a-IgG, a-IgG2a, a-IgG2b, and a-IgM secondary antibodies. Levels of IgG and IgM were significantly lower in statin-treated mice when compared to levels in untreated mice. There were no significant differences seen in titers of IgG2a and IgG2b (data not shown). Asterisks indicated antibody titers significantly different between statin-treated and untreated mice. B) Bio-Plex cytokine/chemokine analysis of individual sera from C3H/HeN mice treated with statins. Only cytokines and chemokines showing significant differences are shown. The y-axis gives cytokine and chemokine levels in pg/ml. IL-4, IL-5, IL-9, IL-10, and IL-13 are TH2 cytokines whose levels are significantly higher in lovastatin-treated mice. IL-2 and IL-12p70, important for clearance of B. burgdorferi, are also upregulated in lovastatin-treated mice. All data shown are average of 2 independent experiments. The asterisks indicate levels of significance as follows: **, P < 0.01; *, P < 0.05.