Fig. 4: Blocking pro-lymphangiogenic signaling using the VEGFR-3 blocking antibody mF4-31C1 induces an exacerbated memory response to HDM.

a Schedule of HDM-induced allergic airway inflammation in mice (as described previously) including anti-VEGFR-3 blocking treatment using mF4-31C1. b Overall CD45⁺ inflammatory cell numbers. c Blinded inflammation score performed by a pathologist: perivascular inflammation and peribronchiolar inflammation was scored from 0 to 5 on an ordinal scale, with 0 indicating normal structures with no pathologic inflammatory cells, 1 indicating few scattered inflammatory cells, 2 indicating a circumferential inflammatory band 1 cell thick, 3 indicating a circumferential inflammatory band 2–4 cells thick, 4 indicating a circumferential inflammatory band >4 cells thick, and 5 indicating the presence of nodular lymphoid follicular hyperplasia. d Eosinophil, Th2 cell, and T_Reg cell levels as assessed by flow cytometry. e CD4⁺ T_EM to T_CM and Th2 to T_Reg ratios. f IL-4⁺ and IL-13⁺ CD4⁺ T cells levels after in vitro restimulation with PMA and ionomycin. g ELISAs for IL-4, -5, and -13 on HDM specific in vitro restimulated single cell lung lysate samples (48 h). Boxes represent median (central bar) with range from 25th to 75th percentile, and whiskers represent min to max value. Data are representative of n ≥ 4 inflamed mice (n ≥ 3 for PBS-treated mice) and two to three experiments, and statistics (two-tailed Student’s t test, comparing only HDM treated groups) were performed in GraphPad Prism. *p < 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01.