Figure 4

Effect of artemether treatment with and without blood transfusion on splenocyte populations. (A) Mice with ECM showed a mean 36% increase in the total number of splenocytes in relation to uninfected controls (P = 0.0323), which was not significantly affected by treatments after 24 h. (B) The number of myeloid (CD11b + cells) were not changed in mice with ECM compared to uninfected controls, but treatment with artemether, with or without blood transfusion, led to a marked increase in this population after 24 h (P < 0.0001 and P = 0.0038, respectively, compared to mice with ECM untreated). (C) Mice with ECM showed a marked (90%) increase in B cells (B220+) in relation to uninfected controls (P = 0.0002); 24 h after treatment, the number of B cells returned to normal levels with either treatment. (D) The number of T cells (TCRβ + cells) in mice with ECM was not different from that observed in uninfected controls (P = 0.5853), but numbers increased 60–78% after ARM (P = 0.0023) or ARM + BL (P = 0.0077) treatments, compared to mice with ECM untreated. (E) and (F) The effect on CD4+ and CD8+ populations was similar to that observed in TCRβ+ cells. (G) and (H) When CD4+ and CD8+ cells were analyzed in relation to their relative proportions in relation to TCRβ+ cells, an increase in CD4+ and a decrease in CD8+ cells was observed in mice with ECM, compared to uninfected controls or with ECM mice treated with artemether or artemether plus whole blood (P = 0.0004 for CD4+ cells and P = 0.0005 for CD8+ cells); these changes led to an increase in the CD4/CD8 ratio in mice with ECM untreated. Data are shown as mean ± standard deviation and Student t-test was performed for statistical analyses comparing two groups.