Figure 1. Autologous serum reduced spontaneous apoptosis of CLL B-cells in vitro.

Cells were incubated in the presence of 10% AS, 10% HS or complete medium and cell viability was determined after 24, 48 and 72 hours of culture by annexin V–PE/7-AAD staining and flow cytometry. Upper panel: Cytometry plots from a representative patient. Lower panel: The values reported are means ± SEM for 8 independent experiments, each performed in duplicate. Significance was calculated with the Wilcoxon test: ^*p<0.05 ^**p<0.01. Black asterisks are for AS versus Medium, and brown asterisks for AS versus HS.