Depletion of ABCs reduces amount of autoantibodies in serum. Bone marrow chimeras were constructed as described under “Generation of bone marrow chimeras” such that the only CD11c population that entirely expressed the DTR was that of the ABCs. The chimeras were injected 3 times a week with TLR7 agonist, and 8 to 12 weeks later, they were analyzed for their titer of anti-Smith antibodies. The mice were assigned to control and DT-treated groups by matching mice between the groups for their titers of anti-Smith antibodies and then injected as controls or with DT. (A) Schematic outline of the experiment. (B) Percentage of ABCs in blood before and after injection of DT. (C) Anti-Smith IgG autoantibodies were measured by ELISA in mouse serum at various times after injection of DT. (D) Data presented in Figure 7C are normalized to titers of anti-Smith antibodies of day 1. Bars in panels B through D represent mean (± SEM) of at least 5 mice per group. Data are representative of 2 independent analyses. *P < .05 (Student 2-tailed t test).