(A) Effects of STAT3 inhibition on NK cell, macrophage, neutrophil, CD4⁺ T cell and CD8⁺ T cell numbers in the liver determined using flow cytometric analysis. Cell suspensions were obtained from the liver at the end of experiments and labelled with the appropriate antibodies for immune cell analysis. At least three sets of experiments were performed, and a representative experiment is shown here. Data were obtained on day 9 after RRV inoculation (other time point analyses are presented in the Supplementary Data). Data were collected from the experiments and evaluated by statistical analysis. *P<0.05, **P<0.01, ***P<0.001. (B) Effects of STAT3 inhibition or activation on neutrophil accumulation determined by immunohistochemical staining on days 3, 6, 9 and 12 after RRV inoculation. The number of immune-positive signals was counted, calculated and analysed. **P<0.01, ***P<0.001. (C) Immunohistochemical staining of neutrophils in samples from normal controls (transplantation donor liver samples), CC patients and BA patients. The cell numbers in the different categories were evaluated (n=5 in the control group, CC and BA groups; ***P<0.001). The scale bar represents 50 μm.