Fig. 3.

The stimulatory capacity of DCs derived from HCV and healthy individuals. The stimulatory capacity of DCs derived from HCV and healthy individuals was assessed in paired assays run in parallel. Following irradiation, dsRNA matured DCs at 10-fold increasing concentrations (0–10⁴) were co-cultured with allogeneic PBMC (5 × 10⁴). T-cell proliferation was determined on day 6 of culture following 18 h incubation with ³H thymidine (c.p.m. = counts per minute). The results are expressed as mean ± SD of wells in triplicates. The same responder PBMCs from a healthy individual were used in all experiments. Two representative experiments are shown (a). In an overall analysis (b), ³H thymidine incorporation using DCs from each HCV infected patient is plotted against ³H thymidine incorporation for the paired healthy control (HCV/HI-1–7) at each DC concentration (10, 10²,10³ and 10⁴). Linear regression analysis; slope = 0.9 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.735–1.025).