Balb cbyj

C57BL/6J (stock number: 000664), BALB/cByJ (stock number: 000651), RAG2 deficient (C.B6(Cg)-Rag2^tm1.1Cgn/J) (stock number: 008448), RAG2-, IL-2Rg-deficient (C;129S4-Rag2^tm1.1Flv Il2rg^tm1.1Flv/J) (stock number: 014593) were purchased from the Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine). BALB/c IL-5 deficient mice (11 generations derived from IL-5 deficient C57BL/6), and BALB/c IL-13 deficient mice was obtained from A. McKenzie (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK)^{64 (link),65 (link)}. All mice were bred in our animal facility at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California (USC). Mice were maintained at macroenvironmental temperature of 21–22 °C, humidity (48–52%), in a conventional 12:12 light/dark cycle with lights on at 6:00 a.m. and off at 6:00 p.m. In all, 4–8 weeks-old age and sex matched male mice were used in the studies. All animal studies were approved by the USC institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and conducted in accordance with the USC Department of Animal Resources’ guidelines.

For in vivo infections, 5-week-old female BALB/c ByJ (Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, USA) or 5-week-old female immunoglobulin heavy chain-knockout BALB/c mice (C.Cg-Igh-J^tm1Dhu; Taconic Biosciences, Germantown, USA) were used. At appropriate endpoints, mice were euthanized by intraperitoneal injection of tribromoethanol in tert-amyl alcohol at a 1:40 dilution in PBS (2.5% Avertin). Mice were kept under specific pathogen-free conditions at the Louisiana State University Department of Laboratory Animal Medicine. All mouse protocols were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at Louisiana State University.