Fig. 3.

The effect of HPV⁺ and HPV⁻ tumor-derived cell culture supernatants on CpG-induced IFNα production in pDCs. a BDCA-2⁺ pDCs were isolated from the peripheral blood of healthy donors (n = 4) and incubated in the presence of tumor supernatants (n = 18) and CpG ODN 2216 (5 µg/ml). The reference value (100%) indicates the production of IFNα upon CpG stimulation in complete RPMI medium and was evaluated for each donor individually. Columns represent the mean proportion of the reference production of IFNα ± SEM. b Columns represent differences in levels of selected cytokines in highly suppressive (> 50%) HPV⁻ cell culture supernatants (n = 5) and supernatants from non-suppressive HPV⁺ tumor-derived cell suspensions (n = 5). c Columns show the mean (± SEM) relative IL-10, TNFα and TGFβ mRNA expression in HPV⁺ (n = 4) and HPV⁻ (n = 6) tumor samples. d Effect of the indicated recombinant cytokines on CpG ODN 2216-induced IFNα production in healthy control blood-derived pDCs. The reference value (100%) indicates the IFNα level after the addition of RPMI only. Columns represent the mean proportion of the reference production ± SEM in three separate experiments performed with 8 different donors. e Columns represent IFNα production changes in pDC cultures with recombinant IL-6, IL-10 and TNFα in the presence or absence of anti-IL-6, anti-IL-10 and anti-TNFα neutralizing antibodies (10 µg/ml). Antibody-treated samples were compared to samples with recombinant cytokines. f Columns represent IFNα production changes in pDC cultures with HPV⁻ cell culture supernatants in the presence or absence of anti-IL-6, anti-IL-10 and anti-TNFα neutralizing antibodies (10 µg/ml). Antibody-treated samples were compared to samples with culture supernatatnts.*p < 0.05