Table 2.

The correlation between cytokine release, intracellular cytokine and cytokinemRNA levels for both of interferon (IFN)-γ and interleukin (IL)-4 measured following 24-h in vitro exposure to seven doses of HgCl₂ ranged from 15·0 pg to 15·0 µg/ml. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient values(r_s) for five samples are listed for both cytokines. The figures in bold type represent the r_s for median cytokine values.

	Intracellular cytokine			Cytokine mRNA
IFN-γ
Cytokine release	0·21	0·61	0·76	0·75	0·82**	0·89**
	0·82**	0·75**	0·61**	0·54	0·86**	1·0***
Intracellular cytokine	–			0·61 0·11	0·52 0·71	0·71 0·61
IL-4
Cytokine release	0·36	0·38	0·64	0·39	−0·43	0·32
	0·54	0·58	0·34	−0·14	0·83**	0·04
Intracellular cytokine	–			0·39 0·21	−0·05 0·77**	0·68 0·38

^***P<0·001

^**P <0·05.