Fig. 5: S. pyogenes impairs the human immune response through R28-CEACAM1 interaction.

a Schematic representation of measurement of the cytokine and chemokine response of human cervical explants upon challenge with S. pyogenes strains or control buffer. b Quantification of the protein level production of cytokines and chemokines by wounded human cervical explants in response to infection with S. pyogenes strains. Samples were normalized against uninfected controls. Mean and s.d. from n = 7 independent human ecto-cervical explant donors. Statistical significance tested by two-tailed paired Student’s t test (IL-1β *p = 0.0334, GM-CSF *p = 0.0155, MIP-1β *p = 0.0139, SDF-1β **p = 0.0075, IL-12 ***p = 0.0006). c Activated human neutrophils bind purified R28. Data is representative of n = 3 independent replicates. d Survival of S. pyogenes after 2 h of incubation with human neutrophils at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 10 was quantified as the percentage of inoculum. Data are represented as mean ± s.d. of n = 12 data points from n = 6 independent donors. Statistical significance tested by two-tailed paired Student’s t test (R28 + vs. R28- ***p = 0.0003). e Replication of isogenic S. pyogenes AL368 strains in human whole blood was quantified after 3 h as the percentage of inoculum (mean ± s.d. from n = 10 independent experiments). Statistical significance tested by two-tailed unpaired t test (R28 + vs. R28- **p = 0.0063). f Pre-incubation of S. pyogenes with rCC1 suppresses the replication of S. pyogenes in human whole blood (Mean ± s.d. of n = 9 independent experiments). Statistical significance tested by two-tailed paired Friedman test with Dunn’s post-hoc test (Buffer vs. rCC1 *p = 0.0286, rCC1 vs. rCC8 **p = 0.0065).