Fig. 7.

Influence of imatinib (IM) on T cell activation with peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibodies (ANCA)-associated systemic vasculitides (AASV) patients. (a) PBMC obtained from seven AASV patients were stimulated for 3 days with either plate-bound anti-CD3/anti-CD28 or phorbol myristate acetate/ionomycin. The cells were cultured in the presence or absence of 10 μM IM. T cell proliferation was assessed by [³H]-thymidine incorporation. T cell proliferation in the absence of IM was set at 100%. The results are expressed as mean percentage of cell proliferation ± standard deviation (s.d.). (b) PBMC were stimulated as in (a), and stained for CD4, CD45RO and CD25 on day 3. The expression of CD25 in the naive and memory CD4 cells was assessed and expressed as mean percentage of CD25-positive cells ± s.d. for each of the subsets. (c) PBMC were stimulated as in (a) and supernatants were collected on day 3.