Vaginal candidiasis in IL-17A- or IL-17F-deficient mice.

<p>(<b>A</b>) Vaginal fungal burden in C57BL/6, IL-17A- or IL-17F-deficient mice (<i>n</i> = 6) intravaginally inoculated with 5×10⁶<i>C. albicans</i> blastospores. CFU were quantified by culturing serial dilutions of vaginal fluid (VF) from each mouse at different days post-infection (dpi) and expressed as Log₁₀ CFU/100 µl VF ± s.e.m. Pooled data from 3 experiments. (<b>B</b>) Histological analysis of periodic acid-Schiff-stained vaginal sections and inflammatory cell recruitment in vaginal fluids (May–Grünwald Giemsa staining in the insets) at 3 dpi. Representative images (out of 3 experiments) of histology sections and vaginal fluids were acquired with a 40× and 100× objective respectively. Scale bars, 100 µm. (<b>C</b>) Polymorphonuclear cells (PMNs) quantification in the vaginal fluids at different dpi. PMNs were identified by nuclear morphology and enumerated per field at ×100 magnification. Each point represents an individual mouse, and horizontal bar indicates the means. (<b>D</b>) Cytokine levels (pg/mg, cytokine/total proteins for each sample) in the vaginal fluids of naïve or infected (3 dpi) mice. Data are pooled or representative (histology) from 3 independent experiments. * <i>P</i><0.05, **<i>P</i><0.01, ***<i>P</i><0.001, knockout <i>vs.</i> wild-type mice. N.S., not significant.