Figure 6. Effect on immunomodulator expression of the physical separation of cellular components of the tripartite system.

The enhancement of IFN-γ (A), CXCL10 (B) and ICAM-1 (C) production was perturbed when PBMC were physically separated from HBEC. iRBCs, iRBCs + PBMCs or PBMCs were isolated in the upper chamber of the transwell insert, whereas HBEC were consistently retained in the bottom chamber. Columns and horizontal bars represent means ± SEM of three experiments. One way ANOVA showed significant differences among the groups (*p<0.05; **p<0.01; ***p<0.001), using Tukey's post hoc test.