Fig. 3

Mucosal adjuvant activity of CpG ODN assessed by the induction of OVA-specific nasal IgA and serum IgG in BALB/c mice. BALB/c female mice were immunized intranasally with OVA (5 µg/mouse) alone, or OVA (5 µg/mouse) plus CpG ODN (1 or 10 µg/mouse) on days 0 and 7. Serum and nasal washes were collected on day 14. The anti-OVA IgA level in nasal washes and anti-OVA IgG, IgG1, and IgG2a levels in serum were detected by ELISA assay as described in the “Methods” section. The data were obtained from three independent experiments. The box-plot shows the median value with the 25th–75th percentiles and the error bars indicate the 5th–95th percentiles. Symbols in the box plots represent individual mice (PBS, n = 8; OVA, n = 8; OVA plus CpG ODN (1 µg/mouse), n = 8; OVA plus CpG ODN (10 µg/mouse), n = 4). Significance was assessed using the Kruskal–Wallis with Dunn’s post-hoc test: *p < 0.05, NS not significant