Figure 2.

Differential susceptibility of HLA class II transgenic mice to anthrax infection. Groups of naïve HLA transgenic (DR1 n = 11, DQ8 n = 10, DR15 n = 9, DR4 n = 10, DQ6 n = 8) or C57Bl6 (n = 10) mice were challenged with either 10⁵ (C,D) or 10⁶ (A,B) CFU B. anthracis STI strain, in order to compare susceptibility. Mice were challenged intraperitoneally and their survival observed for 20 days post-infection. Percentage survival, together with mean splenic bacterial counts per HLA type, is shown for mice succumbing within the observation period (days 1 to 19) and for survivors culled at day 20. Statistical comparison of mean bacterial loads by mouse strain (D) indicated that higher bacterial loads were seen in DQ6 in comparison to; C57BL/6 (** p = 0.0093), DR4 (**** p < 0.0001) and DR15 (** p = 0.0014), (One-way ANOVA, Tukey’s multiple comparisons).