Fig. 5: TIGIT manipulation of NK and T cells by C. albicans is an immune-evasion mechanism in mice.

a Survival of C57BL/6 mice infected intravenously with C. albicans cells and depleted for NK cells (red line), T cells (blue line) or mock-depleted (black line). Each line represents 10–12 mice from 2 independent experiments. b C. albicans burden in the kidney 48 h post I.V. infection of C57BL/6 mice. The mice were depleted for NK cells, T cells or mock-depleted. Kidneys were harvested, processed, and seeded on Sabouraud dextrose agar plates. n = 8–11 animals examined over 2 independent experiments. Data are presented as mean values ± SD. c Flow cytometry staining of C. albicans SC5314 yeast cells using Murine TIGIT-Ig (Black empty histogram) or a negative control protein (filled gray histogram). One representative experiment out of 3 is presented. d Quantification of the results presented in (c). n = 3 independent experiments. Data are presented as mean values ± SEM. e Cytotoxicity assay of C. albicans yeast cells using splenic NK cells isolated from mice. The NK cells were blocked or not using anti-TIGIT antibodies. Each line represents cells from one mouse collected during one of two independent experiments. For the survival assay significance was tested using a Mantel–Cox log-rank test. For the fungal burden significance was tested using a two-tailed Mann–Whitney test. For the flow cytometry and NK cytotoxicity assay a two-tailed Student’s t test was used. ns = not-significant, * = p < 0.05, ** = p < 0.01, *** = p < 0.001.