Figure 1. The effect of cortisol (cort), medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) and progesterone (prog) on BCG induced IFNγ responses of PBMCs of non-contraceptive users.
PBMCs of household contacts of active TB cases were cultured with AIM-V medium only (unstimulated controls), incubated with cort, MPA and prog alone (not shown) or M.bovis BCG (5×105 CFU/ml) in the presence and absence of the three hormones (final concentration of 10−5 M). IFNγ concentrations were measured by ELISA in the supernatants collected three days post stimulation (n = 29). Differences among stimulations were determined by one-way ANOVA with the Bonferroni Post-Hoc test and the data represented as mean ± SEM. * p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 compared to BCG alone.