Figure 3From: The impact of serine protease HtrA in apoptosis, intestinal immune responses and extra-intestinal histopathology during Campylobacter jejuni infection of infant miceHtrA aggravates C. jejuni induced colonic apoptosis and inflammation. Immediately after weaning, infant mice were perorally infected with C. jejuni NCTC11168 (WT, closed circles) or the mutant strain NCTC11168∆htrA (∆htrA, open circles). Uninfected animals (Naïve; open diamonds) served as negative controls. The average numbers of apoptotic cells (positive for caspase-3, panel A), proliferating cells (positive for Ki67, panel B), T lymphocytes (positive for CD3, panel C), and regulatory T cells (Treg, positive for Foxp3; panel D) from at least six high power fields (HPF, 400× magnification) per animal were determined microscopically in immunohistochemically stained colonic sections at day 7 p.i. In addition, representative photomicrographs of colonic Casp3-positive apoptotic (indicated by black arrows; A, right panel) and Ki67-positive proliferating (B, right panel) cells are shown (Naïve left, WT middle, ∆htrA right photo; 400× magnification, scale bar 20 μm). Numbers of analyzed animals are given in parentheses. Means (black bars) and levels of significance (P-values) determined by the Mann–Whitney-U test are indicated. Data shown were pooled from three independent experiments.Back to article page