Spontaneous accumulation of activated T cells in miR-146a^−/− mice as they age. (A–C) Flow cytometry analysis to quantify the CD4 (gated as CD4⁺) and CD8 (gated as CD8⁺) T cells of activated phenotype (gated as CD62L^lo or CD69^hi) in PB of WT or miR-146a^−/− mice. Measurements of the percentage of activated CD4 and CD8 T cells at the indicated age (A and B) and representative histogram plots at 1 yr old (C) are shown. (D) Flow cytometry analysis to quantify the total CD4 (gated as CD4⁺) and CD8 (gated as CD8⁺) T cells in the SP of 1-yr-old WT or miR-146a^−/− mice. (E and F) Flow cytometry analysis to quantify the CD4 (E; gated as CD4⁺) and CD8 (F; gated as CD8⁺) T cells of activated phenotype (gated as CD62L^lo or CD69^hi) in the SP of 1-yr-old WT or miR-146a^−/− mice. Measurements of the percentage of activated CD4 and CD8 T cells and representative histogram plots are shown. Data are presented as mean ± SEM (n = 8) and are representative of three independent experiments. **, P < 0.01 (miR-146a^−/− T cells in comparison with the corresponding control WT T cells; for time course experiment, statistics of the end time point are shown).