SPN and infection: To further examine if the altered differentiation of effector T cells would reflect in the recruitment of inflammatory cells to the cardiac tissue, the hearts of mice at the 15th day post infection were harvested and digested with collagenase, in order to compare the profile of infiltrating leukocytes between WT, CD43−/− and CD43NGG mice by flow cytometry using the gating strategy presented in Fig. S3 (for phagocytes) and Fig. S4 (for lymphocytes).