A Plethora of T cells Activated by Drug-Encapsulated Liposomes in a Tumor-Draining Lymph Node of a Mouse

This is an image of a very thin section of a tumor-draining lymph node of a mouse. It is stained for nuclei of cells (the blue stain) and for specific T cells (the red stain). The lab that I work in seeks to understand how to best manipulate the immune system to fight cancer. In my research, I directly injected drug-encapsulated liposomes, made for us by Cartney Smith of Dr. Kongs lab, into the tumor draining lymph node of a mouse. The liposomes contain an activating agent, a steroid to counter suppression, and a peptide specific for the T cells seen in the picture. The liposomes successfully induced the proliferation of T cells, a cell type important to fight cancer. By injecting directly into the lymph node we were able to see a much larger number of T cells, as seen in this picture, compared to mice that did not receive any liposomes. For more information about the Image of Research--Undergraduate Edition go to: http://go.library.illinois.edu/imageofresearch_ureditionOpe