Fig. 1

Experiment and workflow schematic. Whole blood was extracted by venipuncture and separated using a density gradient. Isolated PBMCs were incubated for 7 days either alone or in the presence of C. neoformans. Subsets of both uninfected and infected groups were incubated with testosterone or 17 β-estradiol. All samples were setup in triplicate and the B and T cell response was determined via flow cytometry in the first dataset. The T cell and natural killer cell response was determined in the second dataset. Dead cells were identified in both datasets using dead cell stain. Because no differences were observed in cells incubated with sex hormones, only cell supernatants of uninfected and infected PBMCs (without hormones), from the first dataset, were used for cytokine analysis via Luminex assay