Figure 7

Cellular proliferation toC. abortusantigen for Groups 1, 2, 3 and 5 separated by pregnancy outcome. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from the 67 sheep in the five experimental groups were purified from whole blood (as described in section “Blood collection and peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) preparation”) on five occasions and set up in lymphocyte stimulation assays in vitro with the UV-inactivated Chlamydia abortus (C. abortus) antigen (set up as described in section “Lymphocyte stimulation assays”). One set of the duplicate plates were analysed for cellular proliferation (described in full detail, section “Cell proliferation assays”). 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. The datasets from experimental group 1 (low dose), group 2 (medium dose), group 3 (high dose) and group 5 (sub-cutaneous control) are presented in graphs (A–D). In each graph the data has separated by outcome of pregnancy into aborted and lambed groups (as described in brief in section “Baseline immunological responses for assignment of experimental animal groups” or in full detail in Longbottom et al. [11]) represented yellow and black data points respectively. The data points are the arithmetic mean values for each cellular bleed and the error bars represent the standard error of the mean (SEM) except for group 3 where there is a single animal in the aborted group. The x axis represents the weeks post inoculation with C. abortus (intranasal inoculation (i/n) Groups 1 and 2 with sub-cutaneous inoculation (s/c) Group 5). The week numbering for groups 1, 2 and 3 are consistent in relation to i/n whereas group 5 is in relation to s/c. The y axis represents the arithmetic mean cellular proliferation in counts per minute units. (a) Group 1 (low dose), (b) Group 2 (medium dose) and (c) Group 3 (high dose and (d) Group 5 (sub-cutaneous control). The statistics summarised in the figure been derived from Linear Mixed Modelling (LMM) exclude analysis of group 3 (*) as described in detail in section “Statistical analyses” with a summary of estimates disclosed in Additional file 6).