Figure 2

Cellular immune responses of sheep used for selection and assignment of experimental groups. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from the 94 sheep were purified and set up in lymphocyte stimulation assays in vitro at week 0 with the mitogen Concanavalin A (ConA) and UV-inactivated Chlamydia abortus (C. abortus) antigen (as described in full in section “Lymphocyte stimulation assays”) with duplicate plates set up for the measurement of cellular proliferation (as described in full in section “Cell proliferation assays”) and culture supernatants (collected at 96 h). In brief, cellular proliferation was measured for the last 18 h of the 120 h culture, 0.5 microCurie/well was added and plates were harvested and data collated for individual animals as the geometric mean of quadruplicate values. Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) production was measured in the culture supernates by a specific quantifiable ELISA (as previously described [11]). The data are displayed in bar graphs with individual animal data shown as single bars. Black bars represent sheep retained for the study and red bars represent sheep removed from the study. A Cellular proliferation to ConA. Where the x axis displays data for individual animals and the y axis shows the cellular proliferation data presented in counts per minute units. B Cellular proliferation to C. abortus antigen, where the x axis displays data for individual animals and the y axis shows the cellular proliferation data presented in counts per minute units. C IFN-γ production to ConA, where the x axis displays data for individual animals and the y axis the IFN-γ production units in picograms/millilitre. D IFN-γ production to C. abortus antigen, where the x axis displays data for individual animals and the y axis the IFN-γ production units in picograms/millilitre. The statistics displayed on each graph have been derived from Linear Mixed Modelling (LMM) as described in detail in section “Statistical analyses”.