Figure 7.

CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cell-mediated immunity of mice immunized with recombinant proteins. C57BL/6 mice were immunized s.c. with the recombinant proteins following the scheme described in Figure 6A. To determine the intracellular expression of interferon gamma (IFN-γ) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), intracellular cytokine staining (ICS) was performed following the in vitro culture of splenocytes in the presence or absence of the antigenic stimuli yPvCSP-VK210 (yVK210), yPvCSP-VK247 (yVK247), and yPvCSP-P. vivax-like (yVL). (A) Frequency of CD4⁺ cytokine-producing cells. (B) Frequency of CD8⁺ cytokine-producing cells. Asterisks denote statistically significant (P < 0.05) higher frequencies of cells from mice immunized with the recombinant proteins when compared to cells from mice injected with adjuvant only. Media backgrounds of all samples were subtracted before plotting.