Figure 5.

Surface expression of chemokine receptors (CCR5 and CCR3) on CD4⁺ lymphocyte subsets in the peripheral blood of VL patients cultured in vitro with or without specific antigen. Frozen PBMC from five VL patients, studied in acute and healed phases of disease, and from five healthy controls were cultured for 24 hr in medium alone (a) and in the presence of LAg (b). Cells were stained with anti-CD4+, anti-CCR5 and anti-CCR3 mAbs and PI. Histograms represent the mean percentage of positive CD4⁺ cells expressing CCR5 or CCR3. Healthy controls (white columns); acute VL patients (black columns); healed subjects (shaded columns). In (a) significant differences between acute VL patients and other two groups are shown. In (b) significant differences between acute VL patients and the value detected in the same patients studied in healed phase of disease are shown.