Figure 6.

Heterologous recombinant DNA and protein prime/boost immunization elicits polyfunctional Mycobacterium tuberculosis rMT1721-specific CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells. Splenocytes were isolated 12 days after immunization. The splenocytes were exposed to the rMT1721 and cytokine production was measured by monoclonal antibody staining and flow cytometric analysis. The antigen-specific T cells were divided into three distinct populations based on their ability to produce interferon-γ (IFN-γ), tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-2 (IL-2) individually (one cytokine), or any combination of two cytokines (two cytokines) or all three cytokines (three cytokines). The cytokine profiles were determined by expressing each cytokine response as a proportion of the total antigen-specific cytokine-producing T-cell response. Data were analysed using the flowjo 7.6 software (Tree Star) and are presented as the mean values from the groups rMT1721 prime/DNA-MT1721 boost and DNA-MT1721 prime/rMT1721 in a pie chart.