Figure 3

Diminished DOCK8 protein levels in PBL of ERU cases. (A) Representative signal abundances of DOCK8 in PBL of controls (left panel) and ERU (right panel) detected by western blot. DOCK8 signal abundance in PBL of diseased specimen was decreased compared to controls. Lower molecular extra bands result from further reactivities of the polyclonal rabbit anti DOCK8 antibody. (B) Compared to healthy controls (n = 16), DOCK8 levels in ERU PBL (n = 36) were significantly (***p ≤ 0.001) decreased to 63% of physiological expression rate (set to a 100%). All protein abundances of DOCK8 were normalized to beta actin. (C) Analyzes of lymphocyte subset composition in healthy controls and autoimmune cases revealed no significant differences. (D) Statistical analysis of DOCK8 expression differences in lymphocyte subsets of healthy controls (white bars; n = 13) and ERU cases (grey bars; n = 12). DOCK8 expression intensity (geo MFI) was decreased in all lymphocyte subsets of ERU cases. In CD8⁺ T cells, no considerable DOCK8 expression difference between control PBL and ERU cases could be detected, whereas in CD4⁺ T cells of ERU horses, geo MFI was reduced to 85% compared to healthy controls. In B cells of autoimmune cases, a significant decrease of DOCK8 geo MFI to 57% was detected (*p ≤ 0.05).