Fig. 1.
Analysis of the expression of the CD127 and CD39 antigen on CD8 Tregs from PBC patients and healthy subjects. Panel a: Percentage of CD127 positive cells in in vitro generated CD8 Treg from PBC patients and healthy controls and comparison of the mean percentages of CD8+CD28−CD127+ cells before (t0) and after (t7) CD8 Treg in vitro generation with cells from PBC patients (black bars) and healthy controls (white bars). A statistically significant decrease of CD127 antigen expression was observed on control cells but not on cells from PBC patients (P = 0.05). Panel b: Percentage of CD127 positive cells in ex vivo freshly isolated CD8+CD28− T lymphocytes from PBC patients and healthy controls. Panel c: Percentage of CD39 positive cells in in vitro generated CD8 Treg from PBC patients and healthy controls and comparison of the mean percentages of CD8+CD28−CD39+ cells before (t0) and after (t7) CD8 Treg in vitro generation with cells from PBC patients (black bars) and healthy controls (white bars). A statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups (P = 0.0032). Panel d: Percentage of CD39 positive cells in ex vivo freshly isolated CD8+CD28− T lymphocytes from PBC patients and healthy controls. All the experiments were conducted in duplicate and data are expressed as percentage means ± SD of the two results obtained.
