Parasitemia levels in infected, vaccinated mice depleted of immune cells.

<p>Panel <b>A</b>. Mice immunized with the MVA-CSP/IL15 vaccine were depleted of CD4 T cells (closed circles) using specific antibodies and then infected with PyNL SPZ before evaluating parasitemia levels. Control mice were vaccinated but were not depleted of CD4 T cells before the PyNL infection (closed circles). Results are expressed as the mean % parasitemia ± SEM (10 mice per group); p = 0.008 (Mann Whitney test). Panel <b>B</b>. Parasitemia levels at day 16 after the PyNL SPZ infection. Mice (n = 10) were immunized with the MVA-CSP/IL15 vaccine and then were treated with specific antibodies to deplete CD4 T cells, CD8 T cells or NK cells. The control groups consisted of non-depleted, vaccinated mice or naïve animals. At day 16 when parasitemia levels for all groups were compared (Kruskal-Wallis test), a statistical significance of p<0.05 was observed. Parasitemia levels for the CD4 T cell depleted vaccinated mice were significantly higher than the naïve levels (**p = 0.007) while the difference in the extent of parasitemia approached statistical significance [*p = 0.047 for the vaccinated compared to naïve mice (Mann Whitney test)].