Figure 1.

Impact of ActA and InA on the maturation of DCs. Immature dendritic cells (iDCs) were generated from PBMCs of healthy donors by culturing with IL-4 and GM-CSF. Differentiation into mature DCs (mDCs) was achieved by addition of an inflammatory cytokine cocktail for 24 hours. To study the impact of various hormones on the maturation process, maturation was performed in the presence or absence of Dex, TGF-β1, ActA or InA. Subsequently, the cells were analyzed for surface expression of CD40, CD83, CD86 and HLA-DR by flow cytometry. Representative histograms (left panel) are depicted for each hormonal treatment (grey shaded areas); analysis of corresponding iDCs (grey line) and mDCs (black line) are shown in each histogram for control. In addition, statistical analysis of the mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) as a quantitative measure for surface expression levels is depicted as bar diagrams (right panel). n = 14.