Fig. 1

IL-4R and IL-5/eosinophils control microfilaremia, whereas IL-5 and eosinophils impair adult worm survival and maintenance of microfilaremia. a Microfilariae count per 50 μl of peripheral blood throughout L. sigmodontis infection and b frequency of wildtype (WT) controls, IL-4R^−/−, dblGATA, IL-5^−/− and IL-4R^−/−/IL-5^−/− mice that develop microfilaremia. Adult worm burden (c, d), embryogenesis of female adult worms staged as eggs, morulae, pretzel and stretched microfilariae (mf) at 71 days post-infection (dpi) with numbers of female worms containing stretched microfilariae within their uteri indicated above the different mouse strains (e), and female (f, h) and male worm length (g, i) at 71 (c, f, g) and 119 (d, h, i) dpi. Results are shown as means ± SEM (a, b), medians (c, d), and box and whisker plots with 10th and 90th percentiles (e–i). Data were analyzed using two-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni’s post-hoc test (a), one-way ANOVA followed by the Dunnett’s test (f) and Kruskal–Wallis test followed by Dunn’s multiple comparison test (c–e, g–i). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001. Data shown in a–c are pooled from two independent experiments at 71 dpi with a total of 10–16 mice per group. Data shown in d, f–i are from one experiment with 6–10 mice per group and data shown in e are from a single experiment with 5 mice per group and analysis of 2 female worms per mouse