Following overnight co-culture with stimulator cells, PBMC were harvested, washed in 1× PBS, stained extracellularly, permeabilized, and stained intracellularly, using a 13-color panel as previously described [24 (link), 30 (link), 31 (link)]. The panel used included the following mAbs: CCR7-PE (clone: G043H7, provider: BioLegend), CD4-PerCP-Cy5.5 (L200, BD Biosciences), CD19-BV421 (HIB19, Biolegend), CD3-BV650 (SP34-2, BD Biosciences), integrin α4β7-Alexa Fluor 647 (ACT1, conjugated in house), CD8-Alexa Fluor 700 (RPA-T8, BD Biosciences), CD45RA-APC-Cy7 (5H9, BD Biosciences), CD69-ECD (TP1.55.3, Beckman Coulter), IFN-γ-PE-Cy7 (B27, BD), IL-17A-BV570 (BL168, Biolegend), IL-2-BV605 (MQ1-17H12, BD Biosciences), and TNF-α-BV711 (MAb11, Biolegend). Cell viability was assessed using a Violet Live/Dead viability kit (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA). Stained cells were fixed with 1% PFA in PBS. Samples were acquired using a customized LSRII flow cytometer (BD Biosciences) and analyzed using Flowjo v10 (FlowJo, LLC, San Francisco, CA). Responses against IpaB (S. flexneri 2a) were expressed as net percentage of positive cells (i.e., total percentage of positive cells in the presence of IpaB-stimulating cells (targets) minus percentage of positive cells in co-cultures with background stimulators (B-LCL without IpaB).
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