Fig. 6

Induction of specific anti-DENV3 cell-mediated responses in immunized mice. a Lymphocyte proliferation for each group of immunized mice, after stimulation with recombinant DENV3 (black bars), RPMI (white bars, negative controls) and ConA (grey bars, positive controls). After DENV3E stimulation, cells from mice immunized with MWNT-DENV3E showed a significantly higher level of proliferation compared to cells from mice that received saline. The same result was not observed for cells from mice immunized with non-conjugated DENV3E and MWNT, being statistically similar to mice that received saline. The RPMI and ConA controls behaved as expected. b–d Respectively, IFN-γ, IL-6 and IL-10 induction levels were evaluated on the supernatant of cultured splenocytes after DENV3E stimulus. The production of these cytokines appear higher in cells from animals immunized with MWNT-DENV3E, when compared to the other groups. Statistical significance was achieved only when IL-10 was assayed in MWNT-DENV3E groups stimulated with the recombinant DENV3E protein (statistical test: one-way ANOVA with Dunn’s multiple comparisons test ***P≤0.001; *P≤0.05)