Figure 5.

Immune cell responses in the large intestines following oral cardamom essential oil application to C. jejuni-infected microbiota-depleted IL-10^−/− mice. Microbiota-depleted IL-10^−/− mice were infected with C. jejuni strain 81–176 on days 0 and 1 by gavage and perorally challenged with cardamom essential oil (CARD; white circles) via the drinking water starting on day 2 post-infection, whereas mock control mice received vehicle (black circles). On day 6 post-infection, (A) macrophages and monocytes positive for cleaved F4/80, (B) T lymphocytes positive for CD3, and (C) regulatory T cells positive for FOXP3 were enumerated in the colonic mucosa and lamina propria within immunohistochemically stained large intestinal paraffin sections (indicated are the median numbers of positively stained cells from six high power fields (HPF, 400× magnification) per animal). Naive mice (open diamonds) served as untreated and uninfected controls. The box plots indicating the 75th and the 25th percentiles of the median (black bar within box), the total range, the levels of significance (p values) as calculated with the ANOVA test, and Tukey post-correction and the number of analyzed mice (in parentheses) are shown. Data were pooled from four independent experiments.