FIG 6.

Priming induces greater antimicrobial peptide expression in skin abscesses of primed wild-type and rag1^−/− mice. Skin sections from BALB/c (A) and C57BL/6 (D) mice were stained with antibodies against CRAMP (i to v) and mβD-3 (vi to x). ImageJ quantification showed antimicrobial peptide expression at abscess sites of wild-type (B and E) and rag1^−/− (C and F) mice. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001 (versus naive infected mice via Student's t test; n ≥ 10 images per sample). The host defense peptide (HDP) index was calculated by determining the expression levels of samples (% of uninfected control levels), normalized to 10⁶ CFU MRSA in abscesses of corresponding samples as previously described (53). Data presented are mean antimicrobial peptide indices and SD.