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. 2023 Feb 10;14:1094326. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1094326

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Clodronate depletion of phagocytic tick hemocytes and validation of phagocyte depletion. Mechanism of clodronate liposome-induced depletion of professional phagocytes (A). Schematic showing the optimization of clodronate and liposome concentrations to deplete phagocytic hemocytes (B). Tick survival was evaluated following injection of clodronate (CLD) and control liposomes (LP) at different concentrations (stock, 1:2, 1:5 in 1X PBS), with 1X PBS used as control (C). Hemolymph was perfused 24 h post-CLD or LP injection (unfed status) to assess the effect of depletion on total hemocyte count (D) and proportion of phagocytic hemocytes (E). The proportion of phagocytic hemocytes was also assessed in CLD- or LP-injected ticks 5-days post feeding (F). Survival was checked each day for 8 days; 15 ticks were assigned to each treatment group. Significance was determined with the log-rank (Mantel-Cox) test using GraphPad Prism v8.4.1. Error bars represent ± SEM of five ticks. Ticks from PBS, LP 1:5 and CLD 1:5 injected groups all survived throughout the observation period. Quantitative data were analyzed using unpaired t-tests in GraphPad Prism v8.4.1. **P < 0.01, ****P < 0.0001.