Fig 7. Monocyte differentiation in the presence of tacrolimus and MPA causes a small shift in macrophages subsets.

CD14+ monocytes were freshly isolated from whole blood samples of healthy volunteers (n = 5) and then cultured for 4 days with either vehicle, 10 ng/ml tacrolimus, 50 ng/ml tacrolimus, 200 ng/ml tacrolimus or 10 μg/ml MPA. The addition of cytokines was used a positive control. Differentiated macrophages were gated based on their location on the forward sideward scatter. After 4 days of culturing, the expression of all tested surface markers was increased compared to freshly isolated monocytes. The addition of tacrolimus, but not MPA, resulted in an increase of the expression of M2 markers (CD16 and CD200R). (Data are plotted as the mean ±SEM; n = 5 *) p < 0.05; **) p < 0.01; ***) p < 0.001.