Figure 2

Treatment with tofacitinib aggravates S. aureus septic arthritis in mice. NMRI mice were pretreated with tofacitinib (n = 20) or vehicle only as control (n = 19) for 3 days before inoculation and throughout the remainder of the experiment. Mice were inoculated intravenously with arthritogenic dose of S. aureus Newman (8.9 × 10⁶–1 × 10⁷ CFU per mouse). (a) The severity of clinical arthritis observed for 10 days after inoculation. (b–c) Bone erosions evaluated with μ-CT. Joints were scanned and reconstructed as a 3D-image. The severity (b) and frequency (c) of bone erosion compared between groups as seen on day 10 post infection. (d) Examples of representative images from μ-CT-scans of a knee with bone erosion and one without erosion. Arrows indicate bone erosion. Values are mean ± SEM. Data were pooled from two independent experiments. p values were determined using the Mann–Whitney U test (a, b) and chi-square test (c). *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ns, not significant.