Fig. 4

Antigen-specific elimination of peptide-loaded DCs by NK cells. Mice were infected with FV for 28 days. NK cells were isolated from spleens and livers of naïve (dotted white) or FV-infected mice (dotted grey). Bone marrow-derived DCs were generated from naïve C57BL/6 mice and were unloaded and loaded with FV GagL peptide or class I peptide epitope of ovalbumin (OT-I). Unloaded and either FV GagL peptide loaded or OT-I loaded DCs were mixed in a 1:1 ratio. NK cells were co-incubated with mixed DCs in an effector to target ratio of 10:1 (a). After 18 h, cells were measured at flow cytometer and specific lysis was calculated for splenic NK cells (b) and hepatic NK cells (c). A minimum of nine animals from at least four experiments were used for the analysis. Statistically significant differences were analyzed by a Kruskal–Wallis test (b) or an Ordinary one-way ANOVA (c) and are indicated by *p < 0.05 and **p < 0.01. Mean percentages are displayed by bars (± SEM)