Fig. 6.

The influence of boiling and polymyxin B treatment of thyroglobulin (Tg) on cytokine responses. Normal peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were stimulated, in the presence of autologous serum, with (a) Tg boiled for 5 min, in order to disrupt the tertiary structure or (b) Tg preincubated with polymyxin B (PMX) to remove any lipopolysaccharide. The cytokine levels in day 7 cultures were normalized to those found upon stimulation with untreated, intact Tg (= 100), and are shown as median (range) of six experiments in (a) and three experiments in (b). *P < 0·05, and **P < 0·008.