Figure 3.

Treatment of BDF1 lupus mice with IL-2-loaded NPs targeted to CD3⁺ T cells associates with a reduced frequency of host-derived T_FH cells. (A) Gating strategy for the identification of (CXCR5⁺PD-1⁺) T_FH cells from the T cells. (B, C) Reduced frequency of host (H2K^b+) T_FH cells in spleens from mice treated with IL-2-loaded NPs targeted to CD3⁺ T cells (NPs) as compared to mice treated with untargeted NPs (ctrl). Monitoring by flow cytometry was done by costaining with H2 marker to allow discrimination between (CXCR5⁺PD-1⁺ pre-gated) T_FH cells from DBA/2 donors (H2K^b−) vs. BDF1 recipient hosts (H2K^b+). Representative (B) and cumulative (C) results from 4 mice per group; *P < 0.05. NPs, nanoparticles; T_FH, T follicular helper.