Fig. 1.

SAHA augmented apoptosis and inhibited proliferation of anti-CD3-activated T cells in a dose-dependent manner. (A) BALB/c spleen cells (0.5 × 10⁶) were stimulated with plate-bound anti-CD3 in culture medium with titrated concentrations of SAHA (0 to 4 μM) for 72 h. Thereafter, cells were stained with anti-TCRαβ, DAPI, and annexin V. TCRαβ⁺ cells were gated and shown in a histogram of annexin V. The percentages of annexin V⁺ cells are shown for each culture. One representative FACS pattern of four replicated experiments is shown. The mean ± SE of the percentage of annexin V⁺ cells under different SAHA concentration (0 to 4 μM) were 38.1 ± 6.5%, 41.5 ± 7.2%, 64.4 ± 6.6%, 85.5 ± 2.7%, and 97.1 ± 1.5%. (B) Percentage of viable T cells among total T cells in the culture with SAHA at concentration of 0 to 1 μM. (C) T cell proliferation by anti-CD3 stimulation with SAHA at concentration of 0 to 1 μM. (D) T cell proliferation by allo-APC stimulation with SAHA at concentration of 0 to ≈1 μM. B–D show mean ± SE of four replicated experiments.