Fig. 7: Transendothelial thymic DCs capture blood-borne proteins.

a Uptake of Alexa 647-labeled ovalbumin (Ova-AF647) by thymic DCs. Different doses of Ova-AF647 were injected IV and thymic DCs were harvested 5 min later. n = 3 experiments with three mice/group for 0 and 1 μg, four mouse/group for 10, 50 100, and 200 μg. b Representative FACS plot of thymic DCs. In all, 5 min after IV co-injection of anti-CD11c-PE and 100 μg Ova-AF647, thymic single-cell suspensions were obtained and stained for CD11c⁺ DC. OVA-AF647 geometric mean fluorescence intensity (geoMFI) for PE⁺ subset (TE-DC) = 982 and for PE^neg subset (Par-DC) = 75.1 (a.u.). c Frequency of thymic DCs that bound IV injected anti-CD11c-PE (PE⁺) and/or Ova-AF647. n = 2 independent experiments with five mice/group each, of which one representative experiment is shown (one-way ANOVA). d Subset analysis of thymic Par-DC (i.e., PE^neg), PE⁺ DC (i.e., TE-DC) that did or did not acquire Ova-AF647. n = 2 independent experiments with 10 mice/group (two-way ANOVA). e Age and sex-matched wildtype (WT), Cx3cr1^gfp/+, Cx3cr1^gfp/gfp, and Cx3cl1^–/– mice were injected with 100 µg Ova-AF647 and thymi were harvested 5 min later for FACS analysis of DCs. n = 2 experiments with five mice per group (one-way ANOVA). Bars and error bars represent mean ± SEM. c ****P < 0.0001; **P = 0.0011 (PE⁺Ova⁻ vs. PE⁺Ova⁺) and P = 0.0073 (PE⁻Ova⁺ vs. PE⁺Ova⁺). d ****P < 0.0001. e *P = 0.0217 (WT vs. Cx3cl1^−/−) and P = 0.0172 (WT vs. Cx3cr1^gfp/gfp), DCs dendritic cells, pDCs plasmacytoid dendritic cells.