Fig. 2

PKCtheta ^−/− mice show markedly decreased survival and increased number of colony-forming units in spleen and liver compared to wild-type mice. a Survival studies of wild-type (WT) versus PKCtheta ^−/− mice revealed a significant disadvantage of PKCtheta-deficient animals after intraperitoneal injection of 50,000 cfu of S. typhimurium depicted by a Kaplan-Meier curve and statistically analysed by the log-rank test (p = 0.0024). b Bacterial loads in spleen and liver were determined on day 4 after infection with S. typhimurium and displayed a significant increase in cfu in PKCtheta ^−/− mice. Data are expressed as mean ± s.e.m. *p < 0.05; c In order to investigate the role of T cells in the survival disadvantage of PKCtheta ^−/− mice after infection with S. typhimurium, CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells were depleted with the corresponding antibodies prior to infection. IgG isotype antibodies were used for control animals. Results show no difference in survival in T cell-depleted mice versus mice with IgG control, indicating a negligible role of CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells in the reduced survival rate of PKCtheta ^−/− mice. Data are expressed as mean ± s.e.m. *p < 0.05; d Depletion of CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells was controlled by FACS analysis on day 0 (prior to depletion), day 1 (infection with S. typhimurium) and day 3. Antibodies and IgG controls were injected every third day during the course of the experiment