MERTK and infection: There was also an increase of inflammatory monocytes (SIRPa+ MerTK- CD11b+ MHC-II- Ly6C+ CD24-) but only at 72 h post infection (p<0.05, between the absolute numbers at 72 h versus the other two time points; one-way ANOVA) whereas at 24 and 48 h the number of these cells were not significantly different to that of non-infected mice (p>0.05, between the numbers at 24 and 48 h versus non-infected mice; one-way ANOVA) (Fig 1B).