Figure 3 .

High molecular weight PEG precipitates from SLE sera induce IL10 and IL6 production in human PBMC cultures. Serum samples from 16 patients with SLE and 17 healthy controls were subjected to PEG precipitation, and the precipitates were diluted to the original serum volume in PBS. Ten per cent (final concentration) of each precipitate was added to a 250 µl suspension of PBMC (1x10⁶ cells/ml) from the healthy subject investigated in fig 2. After incubation for 20 hours, supernatant levels of (A) IL10 and (B) IL6 were assessed by ELISA. Horizontal bars show the median values for each group. Owing to a shortage of serum, not all of the samples studied in fig 2 were subject to PEG precipitation.