Impaired immunity of specific CD8⁺ T cells upon infection with <i>T</i>. <i>cruzi</i> of WT mice reconstituted with immunoproteasome-deficient bone marrow.

<p>(a) Experiment design: WT mice were irradiated and reconstituted with WT (WT-WT) or TKO (TKO-WT) bone marrow. After 8 weeks, the chimeric animals were infected <i>s</i>.<i>c</i>. with 10⁴ <i>T</i>. <i>cruzi</i> parasites or left uninfected. Twenty days later, the response of CD8⁺ T cells was assessed in the spleen. (b) gMFI (geometric mean of fluorescence intensity) of H-2K^b staining of CD11c⁺ splenic cells from WT-WT and TKO-WT chimeras. (c) Staining of TCR Vβ chains gated in CD8+ T cells from <i>naïve</i> WT-WT and TKO-WT chimeras. (d) Representative samples and (e) total numbers of specific CD8⁺ T cells stained with H-2K^b-VNHRFTLV pentamers. (f) Representative samples and (g) total numbers of CD8⁺ splenic cells positively stained with anti-TNF and/or anti-IFN-γ after <i>ex vivo</i> restimulation with the indicated peptides corresponding to known or hypothetical <i>T</i>. <i>cruzi</i> MHC class I-restricted epitopes. (h) Combination of cytokines stained in responder CD8⁺ T cells from spleens of <i>T</i>. <i>cruzi</i>-infected mice restimulated <i>ex vivo</i> with VNHRFTLV peptide. Results are shown as individual values and as the mean ± SEM for each group (n = 3). One representative of two independent experiments is shown. Asterisks indicate that the values observed for TKO mice were significantly lower than those for WT mice (*P<0.05 **P<0.01 ***P<0.001 ****P<0.0001).