Fig. 2

DC subsets decline in adults with acute clinical malaria. a DC subsets were identified as negative for lineage markers and HLA-DR⁺. Specifically, pDC were identified by CD303⁺ expression; CD1c⁺ DC were identified by CD1c⁺ (BDCA1) expression and CD141⁺ by CD141⁺ (BDCA3) expression. The absolute number of circulating b pDC (red), c CD1c⁺ DC (green) and d CD141⁺ DC (blue) in clinical malaria patients with P. falciparum (acute n = 7, conval = 6, circles) or P. knowlesi (acute n = 12, conval = 8, triangles) compared to local healthy controls (n = 5, healthy, squares). Box plots show the 10–90th percentile, median and interquartile range for data from all participants. The Mann–Whitney T-test was used to compare unpaired data (healthy vs acute and healthy vs conval). Tests were two-tailed and considered significant if p-values < 0.05