Figure 3. HD-DCs require IL-4Rα to suppress DNBS colitis in recipients.

Balb/c mice were given 10⁶ wild-type or IL-4Rα^−/− HD-DC ip. 48 h prior to DNBS (3 mg, ir.) challenge. Mice were necropsied and assessed 72 h later via (A) macroscopic damage score (Kruskal Wallis with Dunn’s post-test n = 6–10 mice/group from 2 experiments) and (B) histological damage score (Mann-Whitney n = 6–10 mice/group from 2 experiments); (C) representative micrographs of H&E stained cross-sections of colonic tissue: L; lumen; M: muscle; scale bar 300 μm. (D,E) Splenocytes were isolated (5 × 10⁶), stimulated with conA (2 μg/mL, 48 h) and supernatants examined for levels of IL-4 and IL-10 (n = 6–10 mice/group from 2 experiments) by ELISA, and analyzed by one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post-test. (F) WT and IL-4Rα^−/− DCs were treated with HD antigen (100 μg/mL) ± IL-4 (20 ng/mL); n = 4 from 1 experiment; one-way ANOVA with Sidak’s multiple comparison among selected groups. All data are shown as mean ± SEM; p ≤ 0.05 *compared to DNBS, †compared to all groups.