Presence of lethal factor in cervical draining lymph node does not alter cellular activation.

<p>Mice were infected with 1×10⁶ Sterne strain or TKO spores subcutaneously in the left ear. At 24 hours cLN were taken from mice including: Sterne infected mice (solid line non-shaded) along with control non-infected contralateral lymph nodes from Sterne infected mice (solid line shaded), and TKO infected (dashed line non-shaded) and control non-infected contralateral lymph nodes from TKO infected mice (dashed line shaded). cLN were homogenized and cells were stained for flow cytometry. Flow plots were gated for single event live CD45 positive cells. (A) Left- a representative histogram comparing expression of CD69 in draining cLN. Right- The mean fluorescence intensity of lymph nodes draining either Sterne (*, p = 0.0464) or TKO (*, p = 0.0256) infections from seven mice was significantly higher than contralateral control lymph nodes as determined using Student's T test. (B) Left- a representative histogram comparing expression of CD86 in draining cLN. Right- The mean fluorescence intensity of lymph nodes draining either Sterne (*, p = 0.0119) or TKO (**, p = 0.0063) infections from seven mice was significantly higher than contralateral control lymph nodes as determined using Student's T test. (C) A representative comparison of CD80 expression in draining cLN. The mean fluorescence intensity of lymph nodes draining either Sterne or TKO infections from seven mice was not significantly higher than lymph nodes that were not.